Hi all!
It's been quite a while since I've posted anything, life has just been busy is all. Here I will share my build of the Accurate Miniatures 1/48 SBD-2 I finished a few months back as an aircraft of VB-2 from the USS Lexington at the Coral Sea battle. Most of this thread will focus mainly on the interiors and related details as to be honest I got lazy and didn't take any pictures of the exterior painting process. Sorry for that, but I do hope that this will still be of some use to anyone wanting to build a Coral Sea SBD or any SBD in general. Without further ado, let's get started.
I started with the instrument panel. The panel and rudder pedals are molded as a single clear plastic piece in the AM kit. Since the panel had raised dial details I chose to pick out the details with paint instead of using the decals offered for the instrument faces. The the panel was painted with Model Master Acrylics, Grimy Black and US Interior Green. The dials were painted flat black and the dial details were carefully picked out with a very light tan from one of the little square Testors acrylic bottles that I had lying around. The panel was given a dark brown oil wash, the excess cleaned up with a q-tip after the wash had mostly dried. Next was drybrushing with a few varying shades of gray for the black panels and yellows and greens for the interior green parts. Selector switches and some knobs were picked out with MM enamel chrome silver and a few in Testors acryl gloss red. The wear on the rudder pedals were also done with the chrome silver and a fine brush. A drop of Future was added to each dial after all painting was completed. Note that in the picture the excess plastic bit was left between the rudder pedals on purpose to help prevent accidentally breaking them off while handling. This was later snipped off and the attachment point touched up just prior to installation later on.
Starboard gunner sidewall details
I then began working on the sidewall details for the pilot and gunner stations. Each area has separate sidewall pieces for each side, four in total, all rather nicely done.
This is the the starboard gunner's sidewall piece. After I cleaned up the very minimal mold lines here and there I simply painted it MM Acryl Interior Green and instruments and hardware in Grimy Black. Dark brown oil wash applied followed by drybrushing again with yellow and green oil paints, light gray for the black areas, with a tiny bit of chrome silver very lightly drybrushed on the equipment ro make it "pop" a bit. Easy peasy. The rectangular upright object is the soda oxygen filter tank. It got a coat of MM Acryl Chromate Green to make it stand out from the rest of the cockpit green. The canvas straps have not been painted yet as well as other details are missing that I will later scratchbuild, such as the oxygen hose and extraction handle.
That's all for now. Again, apologies for not having many progression photos of each assembly/painting step but I hope the descriptions will make up for that atleast a little. More to come soon. This model is already finished, so no worries with an unfinished build this time around. Gonna spread out the postings over the next few days though.
Chad
It's been quite a while since I've posted anything, life has just been busy is all. Here I will share my build of the Accurate Miniatures 1/48 SBD-2 I finished a few months back as an aircraft of VB-2 from the USS Lexington at the Coral Sea battle. Most of this thread will focus mainly on the interiors and related details as to be honest I got lazy and didn't take any pictures of the exterior painting process. Sorry for that, but I do hope that this will still be of some use to anyone wanting to build a Coral Sea SBD or any SBD in general. Without further ado, let's get started.
I started with the instrument panel. The panel and rudder pedals are molded as a single clear plastic piece in the AM kit. Since the panel had raised dial details I chose to pick out the details with paint instead of using the decals offered for the instrument faces. The the panel was painted with Model Master Acrylics, Grimy Black and US Interior Green. The dials were painted flat black and the dial details were carefully picked out with a very light tan from one of the little square Testors acrylic bottles that I had lying around. The panel was given a dark brown oil wash, the excess cleaned up with a q-tip after the wash had mostly dried. Next was drybrushing with a few varying shades of gray for the black panels and yellows and greens for the interior green parts. Selector switches and some knobs were picked out with MM enamel chrome silver and a few in Testors acryl gloss red. The wear on the rudder pedals were also done with the chrome silver and a fine brush. A drop of Future was added to each dial after all painting was completed. Note that in the picture the excess plastic bit was left between the rudder pedals on purpose to help prevent accidentally breaking them off while handling. This was later snipped off and the attachment point touched up just prior to installation later on.
Starboard gunner sidewall details
I then began working on the sidewall details for the pilot and gunner stations. Each area has separate sidewall pieces for each side, four in total, all rather nicely done.
This is the the starboard gunner's sidewall piece. After I cleaned up the very minimal mold lines here and there I simply painted it MM Acryl Interior Green and instruments and hardware in Grimy Black. Dark brown oil wash applied followed by drybrushing again with yellow and green oil paints, light gray for the black areas, with a tiny bit of chrome silver very lightly drybrushed on the equipment ro make it "pop" a bit. Easy peasy. The rectangular upright object is the soda oxygen filter tank. It got a coat of MM Acryl Chromate Green to make it stand out from the rest of the cockpit green. The canvas straps have not been painted yet as well as other details are missing that I will later scratchbuild, such as the oxygen hose and extraction handle.
That's all for now. Again, apologies for not having many progression photos of each assembly/painting step but I hope the descriptions will make up for that atleast a little. More to come soon. This model is already finished, so no worries with an unfinished build this time around. Gonna spread out the postings over the next few days though.
Chad
