Thanks for the kind words, fellas.
Well, painting this scheme was tedius but simple. The brown was sprayed on, and the green and white was all hand-painted. Lotsa fun, but kinda tuff at times to avoid brush marks.
It was a while ago that I built this beast, and I don’t recall 'fershur what paints I used. But I do know that they were acrylics. (I don’t use acrylics anymore, can’t stand 'em!) I do remember that the brown was a mix of Tamiya Brown and Hull Red. I believe that the white & green were the old Pactra acrylics. Not totally sure on that, tho… The bottoms of these Oscars were natural metal and I used Floquil Old Silver.
It’s coming back to me now! I sprayed the entire model silver, then put on the brown. I then put on the green “tiger stripes” and outlined them in white. (Should actually have been a mix of outlining and slashes of white in between the green, but I did all outlines for some reason) At some point I put too much white up top and simply bridged over to the next green stripe with the idea for this funky scheme forming in my head as I went. What you see was not what I had planned, but it looked so cool I decided to leave it and forego total accuracy.
Kit decals were used, with the ID stripe on the fuselage being masked and brushed with Floquil White and the yellow ID markings on the wings being masked and sprayed with Floquil Yellow, both colors (as well as the Old Silver) being from Floquil’s Railroad line. The spinner was painted the same color as the brown on the rest of the plane, with a little black added for tonal variance. The prop blades were sprayed with the old Monogram/Humbrol Polished Aluminum and buffed.
I added brake/hydraulic lines to the gear legs, True Details wheels and lap belts, stretched sprue antenna (unfortunately not painted black when this photo was taken) and a Squadron vac canopy with scratchbuilt interior frames. Oh yeah, one of my favorite tricks, almost forgot! I carved a bit of the spinner out and then sanded it smooth to replicate a dent.
Other than the lap belts the cockpit was detailed only with paint. By that I mean that I used paint to suggest shadows and add relief to objects that had very little physical depth. Placards were also painted in, and the instruments were painted white, then black with the markings scratched out with a pin. A drop of Future in each bezel was the finishing touch. As luck usually has it, once the fuselage was buttoned up, little of this is easily seen! This is one of the few cases where I don’t sneer at the use of model-geek pen-lites for judging! LOL
Weathering was done throughout exclusively with pastels. The metal chipping came out looking way-cool and I haven’t been able to replicate the same effect again. [:(]
There you have it! And no, DJ, I never thought of doing a Manchurian Nate (or Abdul as the case may be!), is that the scheme with all the writing and the funky roundels? For some reason, that one doesn’t really appeal to me. [|)] (Sorry!) I’d love to build one of the Hasegagme Oscars in the authentic RTAF scheme, tho. Some day!
Fade to Black…
