Tamiya 1/48 scale Spitfire Vbs. of No. 417 (City of Windsor) Squadron Royal Canadian Air Force, North Africa Here is another of Tamiya’s wonderful kits. The Spitfire Vb tropical, fitted with a Vokes filter, which carries the markings of No. 417 (City of Windsor) Squadron Royal Canadian Air Force, North Africa. I have always found this colourful scheme to be the most appealing of all the spitfire schemes used during WWII. I built the kit out of the box, only adding fuse wire for the brake lines.
The kit has been painted using Gunze acrylics Dark Earth and Middle stone on the upper surface and Vallejo Azul on the lower surface. I used the kits camouflage guide by cutting it out and applying it on the model with small amounts of Blue Tac under the edges. By doing this, it allows for a soft edge on the camouflage. Once the kit was painted, I proceeded to apply some weathering by fading the paint by adding a few drops of flat white to the colours and hitting the panels. The kit was then sprayed with Shine Magic for the gloss coat and allowed to dry for 12 hours and then the kit was decaled. The kit decals were used and with Micro set and Micro Sol they performed well. After the kit was allowed to sit over night I followed up with another light coat of Shine Magic, and finished the weathering by adding Citadel brown ink to the panel lines. The last step was adding Tamiya flat base to the Shine Magic for the final matte coat. I decided the kit was not weathered enough, so I shaded the panel lines with very diluted Tamiya smoke and reapplied the matte coat with more Flat Base added to it to give a more faded look to the camouflage.
