Hello, I am new here and relatively new to modeling. I started the hobby about two years ago and this is probably my 5th kit. I am making a Mosquito for my fathers 60th birthday as it is his favorite plane and I recently saw it fly in Ontario.
The tamiya kit is fantastic, goes together like a jigsaw and requires very little alteration. The detail is also great and I haven’t touched the Eduard PE detail kit or the resin cockpit set except to add the radios.
I have airbrushed the camo with tamiya acrylics making a mask based on what came in the box. I am having trouble with the weathering and anything I mix seems to attack the paint even after two coats of future. I also have some enamel dull coat that I have no idea how to use. Any suggestions or comments most welcome!
Heya Kiwi and welcome to the forum! Looks good so far!
Enamel paint should be ok to use over Future without any problems. If it’s the Testor’s Dullcote you can apply thin mist coats but a heavy coat of it will eat into acrylic paint, not sure about Future.
You might want to add a wash to the panel lines, a ‘sludge’ wash seems to be one of the easier ways to do this- I’m sure there’s a tutorial on the forum here somewhere but what you want to do is take a little thinned acrylic paint and add a little dishwashing detergent to it. Apply it to the panel lines, let it dry and then go over it with a moist cotton swab/bud lightly scrubbing lightly. I will remove most of the wash leaving only what’s down in the panel lines.
You can fade the paint too with light mist coats of tan or grey paint, this however if you overdo it you can’t fix unless you repaint the whole model, the sludge wash if you don’t like it you can wash off without much of a problem.
I wouldn’t do too much weathering, since most RAF planes I’ve seen were very well taken care of. Hope it helps!
Kiwi, great work so far! The cockpit looks awesome! And the camo is REALLY nice…a lot better than my first try! How did you mask for the patterns? Great work and keep the pics coming!
Thanks guys. I will try that with the sludge weathering. Good idea with the cotton buds, I wonder if I was pushing a little hard with the brush and maybe that was rubbing off the paint underneath. Interesting to know that RAF planes were often clean and good condition. Now that you mention it I think the few I have seen in person were very clean. Maybe I will just put in some light exhaust staining, a little grass and mud splatter and a few cheeky oil stains.
I cut the masks from paper. The tamiya kit came with a painting guide that was almost the same scale as the kit. It didn’t allow for the curves in the model so some creative license was required but made it very easy. I stuck lightly to the plastic with balls of tape to try and avoid a fine edge line but I think my pressure was a little high and/or I held the airbrush too close and it flattened out most of the ones that I sprayed directly along the edge. It worked well for me as my freehand painting is still worthless. I think my paint and coats were a little thick too as a I managed to cover up all my preshading. Fun though!
Kiwi: If the bud is moist you shouldn’t have to scrub very hard, the sludge wash ought to come up pretty easy. I lick my finger and then rub the bud with it (yeah it’s a little gross!)
I can’t speak for some rough conditions like north Africa or Burma but most of the photos I’ve seen of them in the UK and Commonwealth they only have as you said oil/grease stains, a little soot, and mud.
I have an unfinished Mossie in the works as well. I started it over 10 years ago, stepped away from modelling, restarted it this past March, but have stalled again as summer arrived and my free time vanished into thin air!
I hope to get cracking again soon, and am awaiting a paint order so I can start on a 190 for the Group Build I signed on for.
Only 5 or so kits in, and pulling off a nice job with the paper masks already? Nicely done Kiwi! And as far as you thinking the effect had been “flattened” too much - iirc, most of the Brit machines were factory-painted with a rubber mat as their template, so your masking actually replicates this tight blend quite well. [Y]
Thanks for the tips Kiwi! I’ll be trying that very soon. The small 1/72 Yak-3 didn’t come with much for painting schemes to cut out like that, but the larger scale stuff I can see it working very well…as it obviously did for you. Great work Kiwi, a great build you have there!
Thanks everyone! I hope to finish it in the next week or so and can get it it sent out to my dad. Here are a few more pics of the assembly. I get a bit carried away with the dry brushing but it’s fun! Interesting about the rubber maps! Where do you do your research? I’ve been using a double page photo from Air and Space and te photos I took in Canada. Wikipedia is great for general info but do you just go to museums and take photos etc?
And, finished! I think… Kind of rushed the final weathering as have to get it on the post in the next couple of days. Still he to attach a few small parts and touch up a few places but otherwise I think it has come together well.
These next pictures may or may not have been taken at RAF Biggin Hill in 1940…
And the inspiration! 
