Hey there guys, couple of kits finished recently, trying to make my (limited) armor building skills translate into some aircraft! Not having cranked out any wingy things since I was in high school (when most of them ended up attached to bottle rockets - or even worse, model rocket engines!), figured I had better start with some “staples”.
Both of these are built straight OOB except for the attempt at some masking tape seat belts in the FW190 - tried to take some cockpit photos, but they didn’t pan out. Despite a fairly liberal coating of future pre-decals, followed by micro sol/set, had issues with silvering on both. Not really sure where to go with weathering aircraft past the ‘sludge wash’ which came out pretty decent in both instances, and the added pastels for cannon burn and some exhaust stains.
Looking for ANY input you can give me to help improve the quality of my builds! Don’t worry about hurting my feelings or anything, I can take it. [:D] Really just looking to get better!
Final note - thanks again to Daywalker who provided me with the 109 decals (free of charge![tup][tup]) after the kit-supplied Hasegawa ones shattered the second they hit the water. [:O]
Well I don’t know what your armor skills are like but your aircraft skills are pretty darn good. Both look really nice. A little clean for my taste but well done. I figured an armor guy would so much mud caked on the wing it wouldn’t have any lift at all.[;)]
Manstein - didn’t know you habited this part of the forums as well! [(-D]
The mottling is indeed airbrushed. I used an index card cutout for the larger “splotches” then filled in freehand the smaller “dots” with rlm74/75. If you look on the starboard side you can see a little airbrush-barf I was too worried to fix entirely on the forward side of the black 13.
I admit to being totally clueless here - I also feel that they look too “clean” (maybe just all of the armor builds recently?) - and really have to idea how to go about weather them. Any suggestions?
Both look great. A good start to make them look a little more ‘weathered’ is to try a bit of pre-shading. You do the same thing in the armor section, but with planes just folow the panel lines. Be carefull when painting the topcoat. Try not to totally hide the panel lines. Another thing you can do is lighten the top coat slightly and target the centres of the panels. This fools the eye into adding depth to the edges and giving the impression of sun bleached panels. Lastly, get a fine brush with some silver on it and add a few scratches here and there. Walkways to the cockpit are a goodun for wear. Around the windshield, Around the inspection hatches and lastly on the prop and spinner. (Make sure the prop is made of metal 1st and not wood [:D])
All that said aside, if these are your first attempts at Winged things. YOU ARE THE MAN. There far better than my 1st attempts.
I concur! Well done on the aircraft! While i don’t have the experience and knowledge of many of the other members here, i probably wouldn’t help much. I just wanted to compliment your builds and welcome you to the “good side of the force!”[;)]
I am a little confused on something though, and i hope maybe you might know. It was my understanding that Switzerland was under the neutrality laws, and the vast majority of the population was against the National Socialist Party. Wouldn’t Swiss Messerschmidts be contrary to that? After a google search, i couldn’t find the answer to that, and i was hoping maybe someone could shed a little light for me[%-)]
…lol, are you kidding me?..I love a/c, just don’t tell the armor guys!!!..I thought that looked like an airbrush hiccup, but very nice work indeed…I tend to go for the clean look as well:
Switzerland was neutral as you say but they did have an army and an airforce. If you wernt going to build your planes yourself you had to buy them from somewhere. Why not your neighbours? Also, an awfull lot of German planes flew to Switzerland to escape the war because of there neutrality. The planes were probably confiscated, repainted in Swiss colours and evaluated.
Luftwoller - now this is what I’m looking for. Question - when doing the preshading, what color are you going with? Is it black for every build or do you vary the color depending on what the topcoat is?
Don’t know why I didn’t think of highlighting the middle of the panels…I do it to my armor. Duh. Paint chipping I sort of knew to do, just not where. I need to expand my library of pics. But those sound like a good start!
Manstein - nice builds! I’m assuming that you went back over the mottling with a thinned basecoat to get that nice soft look? Much less…harsh than mine feels to me.
Question about your decals - do you go back and score the panel lines (after decaling) before doing your wash? Or are you just able to get your decals to snuggle down a lot better than I am?
Yeah, I can see me falling back in love with a/c (on a part-time basis!)…don’t tell anyone in the armor forum. [swg]
…I typically don’t wash a/c, but I do get good results with the decals going down after a good coat of future and lots of decal-setting solution, then I use a draftsman’s pencil and rescribe the panel lines…the mottling is just down with a double-action ab with thinned paint and lots of practice…don’t worry, I won’t tell the armor guys if you won’t…lol…
With a pre-shade, Generally you use Black, correct me if im wrong anyone. You want the darkest colours because you need it to show through the paint on top of it. Ive tried it with varying results. If the paint on top is too heavy you hide the pre-shade, if its too light it looks a bit naff. Paint chipping is a fine art. Again, if you do too much it just looks wierd. I think with chipping, the old adage is correct…Less is more.
Heres a shot of my P40 and the pre-shade. Came out pretty good, I thought any way.
Heres an idea of chipping on the same plane.
Hope fully some of these ramblings might help. There are some awesome builders out there who Ive found to be extremely helpfull. Dont be afraid to ask. I have.
Some tips can also be gleened from builders sites. I still go back and check once in a while.
I’ve taken to trying some post-shading as well. It’s a bit more time consuming than pre-shading but I’ve been able to generate some pretty subtle effects with my Iwata airbrush. Hold an index card along a panel line and spray a very dilute paint a shade or two darker than the camo color and spray towards the direction of airflow on the plane.
Here’s the wing of a recent Fw-190A6 I did with winter camouflage. I used post shading over the top of the distemper to provide a sense of both the rivets and the wearing off of the distemper.
