My paints arrived yesterday, so I painted the Swordfish today. The colors are Dark Slate Gray & Extra Dark Sea Gray over Sky. If you have this kit to build, use these colors. Tamiya suggests Dark Green & RLM 75 Gray Violet over Light Gray. (yeah, I can see the Minister of Aircraft Production getting in touch with the RLM. “Excuse me, old boy. Do you suppose you could spare a few pots of your gray violet colour? We wish to hide our aircraft from you, and can find nothing suitable. Of course, this matter will be heald in the strictest of confidence.” [(-D] )
The camo is freehand.
Hope you like it so far, and thanks for letting me share again !
I dunno Pix, I think an RLM 74/75/76 scheme would look real pretty on a Stringbag[:-,]. I mean, we recently had a post of a purple & lime green Meteor, so why not[}:)]. Tamiya makes some nice kits, but their painting suggestions are usually way off target. Seriously though, the paint job looks real good. Should be a nice add to your shelf.
If you were to build at this rate for a living, you could be near a six figure income!
Looking great, and your freehand work is amazing.
You say that you sent for the paint, and I may have missed it in an earlier thread, but which paints did you use this time? One more question if you don’t mind sharing a secret, but to get that nice even line on the blue underside, did you paint that last, or did you blend the upper colors into the blue?
maddafinga - Ihave their PE set, which includes the rigging. I just have to add a couple of cables to the tail that they overlooked.
therriman - see my post on “Avenger Markings.” They don’t always (if ever) turn out the way I want.
stinger - I painted the colors from light to dark, except on the top wing. There, I had to paint the undersurface last, so I could mask the struts. The colors are Dark Slate Gray (Model Master enamel) and Extra Dark Sea Gray (Gunze acrylic), over Model Master Sky Type-S (Model Master enamel). Tamiya molded the outer wing struts in a “U” shape, with a bar spanning the top. This makes assembly alignment fool-proof, but it also produces a large gap, which I filled with sheet styrene.
I painted the wings apart from the fuselage. I had to paint around the struts on the bottom of the tailplanes. A pain, but no other way is possible, the way the parts are designed.[V]
I’m not a big fan of Tamiya, so I don’t build many of their kits. In fact, this is the only one of theirs in my inventory. They seem to favor fit & ease of assembly, at the cost of other concerns. I can deal with poor fit & complex assemblies. They don’t seem to have many dedicated paint colors, either. Many of them must be mixed, and the SAME color (as for touch-ups) cannot be mixed twice.
I say old chap, that’s a fine example of a swordfish you have there![;)]
Pix,
once again I’m more than impressed[^] very nice job on the freehand camo. I have a little request to make: When you do the rigging, please show me how! I’ve only ever built one bi-plane and I would love to know how to do it properly.
The rigging for the kit is PE. For these, its usually best to just CA one end (top), and let the other end “float” in the corresponding hole. That way, it doesn’t buckle if the other end moves when you glue it.
Thanks again !
