PCM MkI Hurricane

[Greif8]

Well the bird is primed.  Actually considering the amount of puttying, sanding, puttying and sanding I did; the end result was mostly pretty decent.  Following are some shots of the "worry" areas I had before priming.

 

The upper front of the fuselage turned out about as good as I could have expected.  You can also see the upper wing/fuselage join which, while not perfect looks ok, the starboard wing needs a bit of scribing as some of the joint disappeared.  

 

As did the upper rear.  Whew!

 

The lower front also turned out well, except for the slight scribing error, I can live with it.

 

Both wing leading edges also look decent.  I was concerned with the area around the machine gun openings, as they took a bunch of work to blend.

 

I admit that I am a bit surprised at how well the port Fuselage/wing leading edge turned out.  I was sure I would have to do more work on it.  Except for some scratches, that I will buff out, it came out much better than I expected.

 

Except for the front curved area, the blending work on the radiator cover also turned out ok.  I am not sure how I am going to smooth out the rough area, as there is not a lot of space to work.  I may just leave it as is, as looks good under normal viewing conditions - macro always brings out any ugliness - and considering it is underneath and in a difficult to see area, it is probably not worth the time and effort to work on anymore.

 

Ernest

Edited October 17, 2020 by Greif8
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[Greif8]

On 10/16/2020 at 8:00 PM, dennismcc said:

Looks ever so familiar from when I built their G55, lots of challenges, keep up the good work.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

 

Hi Dennis, this definitely is not one of Tamiya's "uber" kits.  Though I am (mostly) having a good time with this model, it is one of those kits that has to be built into submission.  I am getting a lot of practice with puttying, sanding and scribing.  In fairness, I think it looks the part, and it feels very solid, much like the actual aircraft.

 

Ernest

[mozart]

A very promising start Ernest, top quality work on all those joints. 

[Greif8]

I completed the basic painting today.  I went with the Type A camo pattern, drawing and cutting the pattern template myself; and that is the last time I will do that.  It took a very long time to draw and cut the templates out on frisking tape.  I did my best to replicate the pattern closely but I did not get it 100% accurate, though I think it is close to correct.  I sprayed the colors with MRP paints, which are very nice indeed.  They spit a bit when the airbrush is actuated, but that is not an issue if you are practicing good airbrush technique - with the possible exception of spraying Luftwaffe mottling.  The spitting might be a problem there; but I am sure there is a way to prevent that.  The photos are not the best as I shot them quickly.

 

 

Overall camo.

 

A bit out of focus but the picture shows the port side camo.

 

A close up, MRP paint goes down smoothly.  I saw the small thread while saving the photo, fortunately it was only laying on top of the paint and brushed off.

 

I used the "black-basing technique on the bottom for the Sky color.  The upper colors were too dark for that; I'll have to see what I can do with some post shading and fading for those.  I like to keep things like "black-basing" subtle, perhaps a bit too subtle given the standard I see today.

 

Finally, a close of the wheel well area.  Here I attempted to keep the color slightly varied with an eye towards weathering.

 

Ernest

[Greif8]

On 10/17/2020 at 9:09 PM, mozart said:

A very promising start Ernest, top quality work on all those joints. 

 

Thank you for the kind words.  The joints mostly turned out pretty good.  This is about as good as it gets for me.

 

Ernest

[dennismcc]

Now that is really starting to look like a Hurricane, nice paintwork, I know the time it takes to make masks, I used to cut out paper masks and apply them with with Blu Tac sausages for my camouflage patterns and it took forever.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

[Greif8]

2 hours ago, dennismcc said:

Now that is really starting to look like a Hurricane, nice paintwork, I know the time it takes to make masks, I used to cut out paper masks and apply them with with Blu Tac sausages for my camouflage patterns and it took forever.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

 

 

Hi Dennis, I have done the paper mask held up by rolls of blue tack in the past as well.   The splinter type Luftwaffe camo on the wings and tailplanes of fighters, or overall on bombers is not too hard to do that way.  All the "wavy" lines on the Hurricane camo turned out to be quite the bit of work however.  I will be using purpose made masks in the future that is for sure. 

 

Sincerely,

Ernest 

[LSP_Kevin]

Lovely work, Ernest! Looks great.

 

Kev

[mozart]

I really struggle masking camouflage like that so I prefer free-handing with my airbrush. Luftwaffe mottling is easy by comparison! 

[Greif8]

9 hours ago, LSP_Kevin said:

Lovely work, Ernest! Looks great.

 

Kev

 

Thank you Kev!

[Greif8]

9 hours ago, mozart said:

I really struggle masking camouflage like that so I prefer free-handing with my airbrush. Luftwaffe mottling is easy by comparison! 

 

Hi Max, masking this camo was a challenge to say the least, and the end result was not the best, so I will use pre-made masks for this kind of camo pattern in the future. I always freehand Luftwaffe mottling, and in some ways it is easier than the type of camo on the Hurricane.  I will have to figure out the best way to use MRP paint for that.  If I can't I can always use my Tamiya paints though.

 

Ernest

[MikeC]

16 hours ago, Greif8 said:

I like to keep things like "black-basing" subtle, perhaps a bit too subtle given the standard I see today.

 

No, subtle is good.  This Hurricane is coming along beautifully, look forward to seeing the end result.

[Greif8]

3 hours ago, MikeC said:

 

No, subtle is good.  This Hurricane is coming along beautifully, look forward to seeing the end result.

 

Hi Mike, I hope the end result is decent.  There is still a lot I can mess up! 

 

Ernest 

[Greif8]

I completed the decaling today.  I sprayed a nice gloss coat using a 50/50 mix of Tamiya X22 and Tamiya Lacquer thinner.  Unfortunately the decals I wanted to use to show a Hurricane assigned to No. 17 Squadron turned out to be unusable so I ended up marking the plane as a No. 257 Squadron aircraft.  The decals are a mix of the kit decals and the Zotz set that covers aircraft during the Battle of Britain.  I used the HGW wet transfer stencil set for the stenciling.  The kit decals are a bit thick, and you can just see an edge when looking close up, but from more than 6" away they look just fine.  I sealed the decals with another coat of the X22/thinner mix and will start weathering once it cure for a day.

 

I also completed the pilot figure which turned out fairly decent.  I wanted to give the figure a tired and/or strained look as the simple diorama will show the aircraft and pilot just returned from a sortie.  I think I was able to capture the look I wanted, the challenge will be positioning the figure on the aircraft.  I may end up pinning it to the wing as the pose will not give it a lot stability, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

 

Enjoy the photos,

Ernest

 

 

Nice and glossy!

 

 

The HGW stencils behaved well (mostly).

 

The decals laid down well after I used both Micro Sol and a hot wash cloth on the larger ones.  You can make out the slight ridge to the left of the national marking.

 

This photo highlights the uniform.  I used the layering technique to simulate highlights and shadows.  The direct lighting kills some of the effect, but it looks good under normal or diffused lighting.

 

The face turned out well, and I think the figure has a tired/strained look that one might have later in the battle after perhaps 2 or 3 sorties in a day.

 

This shot shows the face directly on.  When the figure is displayed on the aircraft you won't be able to to get this view unless you are looking at the aircraft/figure from slightly below the base.

[Iain]

Looking great!

 

Iain