1/72 IBG Fw 190D-9 Early Production

[scvrobeson]

Happy to see you back at it John, glad you enjoyed the time off.  The progress looks great, especially being only 1/72

 

 

Matt

[Thunnus]

20 hours ago, scvrobeson said:

Happy to see you back at it John, glad you enjoyed the time off.  The progress looks great, especially being only 1/72

 

 

Matt

Thanks Matt!  Good to be back at the modeling bench!

 

Before addressing the spray demarcations on the upper side, I thought I'd shoot the bottom wing crosses.  Using the kit decals as a template, I've prepared custom masks for the major markings using my Silhouette Portrait craft cutter.

 

 

Flipping the bird over, I've tightened up the spray demarcations using little strips of torn paper suspended a few millimeters off the surface of the model using little blobs of Blue Tack (poster putty). It's fairly easy task at this scale since the model is so small and the makeshift masks are correspondingly small.  FYI... these photos have been cranked up in terms of brightness to illustrate the corrective work and may not be representative of what the naked eye is seeing.

 

 

I've also been getting better at milking the Badger SOTAR's performance by dialing in the paint/thinner ratios and reducing the air pressure.  I thought I was going to use masks for the fuselage sides but found that I am getting an acceptable spray demarcation without any aids.

 

 

I've deviated slightly from the all of paint references (Sundin, Crandall, kit instructions) and decided to paint the upper fuselage with the same RLM81/83 combo as the wings and giving the gun cover a hard demarcation all around.  These late war Doras were often manufactured and painted at different factories and hard, mismatching transitions between the front and rear fuselage assemblies was often seen.

 

 

 

Adjustments to match the camo closer to the archive photos, the tail mottle, the mottling on the gun cowling and the yellow/white/yellow ID band are still to come.

[Thunnus]

A little more paint work was completed this evening.  I got the yellow-white-yellow ID bands masked and painted.

 

 

The skinny white upper wing crosses were masked and painted next.

 

 

A periodic perspective reminder...

 

 

The black fuselage crosses are painted.  The starboard cross has been partially obliterated by paint repairs, according to the archive photos.  This is my initial attempt at replicating this but some more will most likely be done to fine tune this effect.

 

 

A brief pause to summarize the work up to this point.  Still a bit of camo painting to do including the tail mottle.

 

[dodgem37]

Good show, John.

 

Sincerely,

Mark

[Citadelgrad]

Looking fantastic, John.  What airbrush are you going to do the mottling with?  1/32 mottling scares me, 1/72, cold sweats.   

[Thunnus]

16 hours ago, dodgem37 said:

Good show, John.

 

Sincerely,

Mark

Thank you Mark!

 

 

1 hour ago, Citadelgrad said:

Looking fantastic, John.  What airbrush are you going to do the mottling with?  1/32 mottling scares me, 1/72, cold sweats.   

Thanks Bill!  For this build, I am using a Badger SOTAR 20/20 for the mottling.  It has a finer needle (0.2mm vs 0.3mm) than my normal Iwata HP-C Plus and I've been trying to extract as fine a spray as I can muster.  Mottling is definitely a practiced thing.  I feel like I am better at it now than I was five models ago.

 

I'm making paint adjustments on the Dora a little at a time, trying to get some little details right.  Here is a look at the radiator face with the mask removed.  I'll keep the mask handy just in case I have to do any paint touch-ups in this area.

 

 

 

The tail mottling was done in RLM 83 Dark Green using the Badger SOTAR airbrush.  Like I've said, I've been slowly getting used to this airbrush and progressing in tightening up the spray pattern. Dark on light mottling is much easier than light on dark, due to the overspray issues being harder to disguise so I'm leaving the engine cowling mottling for later. I've done some work on the paint patch areas that seem to be visible in the archive photos by using the base color lightened with some white to provide a little contrast.

 

 

 

Similarly, I've introduced some tonal variation in the bottom for visual interest but using masks to get a hard edge.

 

 

The tail swastikas have been masked and painted.  The mottling has been touched up as well to better match the archive photos.  Not an exact replication but trying to get closer.

 

[Gazzas]

Brilliant work, John!

[Citadelgrad]

Wowza.  Think its time for a reminder, thats a 1/72 tail.  Those individual blotches must be TINY.  

[Thunnus]

2 hours ago, Gazzas said:

Brilliant work, John!

Thanks Gaz!  Appreciate it!

 

 

36 minutes ago, Citadelgrad said:

Wowza.  Think its time for a reminder, thats a 1/72 tail.  Those individual blotches must be TINY.  

Thanks Bill!  They aren't tiny and from the pics, fairly soft-edged, which is easier to replicate.

 

The exhausts have been covered with camo paint so they need to be redone.

 

 

Careful masking makes this process much easier.

 

 

I did my normal thing with the exhausts, which is to give them a base coat of Alclad Steel and then a mist coat of Alclad Exhaust Manifold.  The exhausts are then dabbled and dry-brushed with a rust color and finished off by spraying the tips black.

 

 

These will get blackened a bit more when I apply the exhaust stains, which look to be significant on this bird.

 

 

A ride in the photobooth to check on the paint progress so far...

 

[Rob Owens]

Oh, c’mon John, really?It’s quite obvious to all that you brought back a Star Fleet Mk. LXXII Portable Replicator from a temporal sojourn to accomplish this. Seriously, how did you have any digits left after hollowing out the exhaust stubs??? 

[Thunnus]

23 hours ago, Rob Owens said:

Oh, c’mon John, really?It’s quite obvious to all that you brought back a Star Fleet Mk. LXXII Portable Replicator from a temporal sojourn to accomplish this. Seriously, how did you have any digits left after hollowing out the exhaust stubs??? 

 

Thanks Rob!  Blowing the knife out of the sides of the exhausts is always a possibility and I've done that on some of my 1/32 scale builds.  But on this one, I was pretty lucky and didn't experience any mishaps!  I was actually quite surprised at how easy the process was.  Yes, it is smaller and more care is needed but there is also less plastic to gouge out.

 

I gave the model a coat of Alclad Aqua Gloss in preparation for the next step, which would be decaling.

 

 

I applied the starboard side chevron markings and Werk Number but remembered that I still needed to do the mottling on the engine cowling.  So I put a pause on the decal application and decided to tackle this last camo painting step.

 

I chose to portray the mottling on the engine cowling as RLM 02 Grey. Whether this is right or wrong is hard to say but I think it is plausible. The Badger SOTAR was again employed and I thinned the RLM02 to a 2:1 thinner/paint ratio and dialed down the air pressure very low.  The Grey paint, although it was heavily thinned, tended to spit upon initial spray so I performed multiple iterations of mottle application and then going back with the RLM 83 Dark Green to cover up the overspray.

 

 

I gave the model a another spray of Aqua Gloss to cover the new painting and will resume with the decal work.

[dodgem37]

Boy do I like that cowling figure/ground.  Good show, John.

 

Sincerely,

Mark

[Thunnus]

On 3/28/2022 at 1:29 AM, dodgem37 said:

Boy do I like that cowling figure/ground.  Good show, John.

 

Sincerely,

Mark

Thanks Mark!

 

I've applied the decals and put a pastel wash over the model.

 

[LSP_Kevin]

That's looking fantastic, John! But I never expected anything less.

 

Kev

[Uncarina]

Just catching up John. Welcome back! I love the work you’re doing with this little marvel.

 

Cheers,  Tom