Airframes
Benevolens Magister
Nicely done.
1/48 Classic Airframes Heinkel He-51
- Thread starter Grant Barr
- Start date
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Looks good so far!
- Thread starter
- #43
Grant Barr
Senior Airman
Started to lay down some colour today and immediately found myself in the midst of a dilemma. The kit instructions call for an overall colour of "Light Grey" which I had interpreted to be RLM63 HellGrau. In the middle of the first light coat I decided it just did not look right. I'm using the Vallejo 71.260 HellGrau but it just looks too dark and maybe a bit too green. Photo of where I got up to below.
Allowing for the fact that everyone's monitors will show the colour slightly differently, and at the chance I'm opening yet another colour can of worms, I'm seeking input/advice on what Luftwaffe pre-WWII light grey should look like. I've checked again with the thread here very capably completed by
javlin
some time ago and with a couple of other builds on other sites, and they all look much more along the lines of a pale grey (more blue than green).
I know we have a lot of extremely knowledgable members. So - any thoughts from the forum?
Allowing for the fact that everyone's monitors will show the colour slightly differently, and at the chance I'm opening yet another colour can of worms, I'm seeking input/advice on what Luftwaffe pre-WWII light grey should look like. I've checked again with the thread here very capably completed by
javlin
some time ago and with a couple of other builds on other sites, and they all look much more along the lines of a pale grey (more blue than green). I know we have a lot of extremely knowledgable members. So - any thoughts from the forum?
Nicely done so far!
- Thread starter
- #46
Grant Barr
Senior Airman
OK - did a bit of reading/research on various websites and the consensus seems to be it should be RLM02 Grau. I'll recover the RLM63 with primer and start again.
Vic Balshaw
Major General
The original Luftwaffe Greu. Well sorted. 
Crimea_River
Marshal
That Vallejo colour is not what I would have expected.
- Thread starter
- #49
Grant Barr
Senior Airman
I agree Andy, I think I might have mentioned it didn't look right the last time I used it (Bf.109C kit I think). Even the RLM02 looks too dark, so much so that I'm resorting to toning it down a bit. It seems pre-WWII RLM colours are not uniform and not well documented which gives the modeller quite a bit of leeway, but I don't enjoy having to do a lot of research as my job as an analyst means I already spend way too much time on computers as it is.
Overall I am a bit disappointed with the colours from Vallejo, particularly the RLM's. I'm sure most other manufacturers have the same challenges, but I am kind of committed to Vallejo now and to change over to another brand will be costly and time consuming.
Hoping to get a bit more bench time tonight (assuming SWMBO doesn't find other tasks for me). Might do a bit of pre-shading to help distract from the questions around colour authenticity - mix it up so to speak.
Thanks for looking in.
fubar57
General
According to those who know schtuff, this is closer to RLM02
- Thread starter
- #51
Grant Barr
Senior Airman
Thanks Geo. Funnily enough I mixed a colour from the Vallejo RLM02 that looks very close to the 71.321 that you posted (assuming the monitor reflects the colour correctly...). I dont have this particular colour in my range so I might have to stick with the mix. Good info to know however!
- Thread starter
- #52
Grant Barr
Senior Airman
Minor progress made in the past week or so. After the issues with using RLM63 I re-did the primer and laid down a light coat of RLM02. I was still not overly happy with this so I decided to play around with shading so colour variances may not be so noticeable.
I tried playing around with a little bit of light/dark shading; trying to highlight the framework ribs and shadowing the fabric where it is stretched in between.
It looks a little drastic but I'm hoping the final look will be effective. These shots were taken after the "lowlight" was applied and before I used white to "highlight" the ribs and other high points. I have to say that painting these fine lines (especially the white) was great practice with the airbrush. It looks pretty rough but I know I can fix most of the "blobby" areas with the final coats.
So the final result (pre gloss clear coat) came out as follows.
I was trying to achieve a couple of things with the final coat. Hopefully it is apparent that the top side is subtly lighter than the underside. I also tried to provide contrast on the lower half of the fuselage which I hope is visible on the last photo showing the LHS front quarter view. Fingers crossed once I get the clear coat, decals and other weathering touches in place it will still be subtly visible.
On a construction note, I had a "play" with fitting the top wing and I have some concerns that the outboard struts will be problematic. Mocking up did not go to plan with the struts appearing they may be too short. I am conscious that the twist in the top wing might have been a factor in this. I did try to fix this with hot water but I'm thinking that perhaps I did not quite straighten it enough. I'll keep on moving forward and hopefully it won't be as bad as I'm imagining.
As always thanks for popping by for a look.
I tried playing around with a little bit of light/dark shading; trying to highlight the framework ribs and shadowing the fabric where it is stretched in between.
It looks a little drastic but I'm hoping the final look will be effective. These shots were taken after the "lowlight" was applied and before I used white to "highlight" the ribs and other high points. I have to say that painting these fine lines (especially the white) was great practice with the airbrush. It looks pretty rough but I know I can fix most of the "blobby" areas with the final coats.
So the final result (pre gloss clear coat) came out as follows.
I was trying to achieve a couple of things with the final coat. Hopefully it is apparent that the top side is subtly lighter than the underside. I also tried to provide contrast on the lower half of the fuselage which I hope is visible on the last photo showing the LHS front quarter view. Fingers crossed once I get the clear coat, decals and other weathering touches in place it will still be subtly visible.
On a construction note, I had a "play" with fitting the top wing and I have some concerns that the outboard struts will be problematic. Mocking up did not go to plan with the struts appearing they may be too short. I am conscious that the twist in the top wing might have been a factor in this. I did try to fix this with hot water but I'm thinking that perhaps I did not quite straighten it enough. I'll keep on moving forward and hopefully it won't be as bad as I'm imagining.
As always thanks for popping by for a look.
Vic Balshaw
Major General
Those wing and tail ribs have come out remarkably well. Nicely done Grant.
- Thread starter
- #54
Grant Barr
Senior Airman
Thanks
Vic Balshaw
, I was pretty happy with how it turned out. Just need to get the upper wing right now - really don't want to spoil all the hard work I've done to this point.
Vic Balshaw
, I was pretty happy with how it turned out. Just need to get the upper wing right now - really don't want to spoil all the hard work I've done to this point.
Crimea_River
Marshal
Looks good.
fubar57
General
Agreed
Good work so far!
- Thread starter
- #59
Grant Barr
Senior Airman
Progress report.
Lots of masking and painting has taken place over the past week - mostly masking (which is not my favourite part of the hobby...). Anyhoo, the result is as follows. Getting the curve for the blue was a real pain in the a*se. I do have a fancy circle cutter doovey but getting the right curve onto the fuselage around the various bits that poke out was quite the challenge. While doing this I also realised I stuffed up the location of the white circles on the fuselage sides - they are about 1.5mm too far forward, which meant the blue fuselage band position needed adjusting. I could have redone the white base and the grey for a third time but not too many people will pick up on it (outside this forum that is...). The colour of the blue itself is a mix of a couple of different blues from the Vallejo range, I did write it down somewhere but I cant seem to find the piece of paper momentarily. I looked a the colours from two other builds (one on this site from
javlin
and one by Brett Green on his website) but think they both are a bit too light. I went for a tiny bit darker shade and I have to say I am pleased with the result.
A close examination will reveal that I will need to touch up the white circles where I had some tiny bleeding under the tape, not a big deal but still irritating.
Next up I applied a red tail fin flash. Like both the grey and the blue I wanted to do some pre-shading to provide some subtle contrast to the final colour. You have to look closely but some delineation between the fin ribs and the fabric in between is there.
Finally, I managed to cut some very small swastikas from photo frisket film to finish off the tail. I know I could have just cut them out from the full tail-fin flash decals but I wanted to see how well I could create the stencil and then paint it without ruining the job to date.
Like the blue I was pretty chuffed with the outcome. They will need some tiny touch ups (along with the white background) but they came out pretty neat and I even got them centred in the white circle backgrounds - happy as!!
Next steps will be all the small touch-ups that I see are required, mostly for the white circles (as already noted) and also for the red tail fin flash where it wraps around the front. I didn't manage to get as clean a wrap around with the flexible masking tape as I would have liked. No big deal - just another touch up to add to the list.
Thanks to all that pop in for a look and/or comments. This one is ticking along slowly but at least I am getting small amounts done nearly every week. Its been very enjoyable up until now, we'll see how that feeling goes once we get to putting the top wing on!
Cheers!
Lots of masking and painting has taken place over the past week - mostly masking (which is not my favourite part of the hobby...). Anyhoo, the result is as follows. Getting the curve for the blue was a real pain in the a*se. I do have a fancy circle cutter doovey but getting the right curve onto the fuselage around the various bits that poke out was quite the challenge. While doing this I also realised I stuffed up the location of the white circles on the fuselage sides - they are about 1.5mm too far forward, which meant the blue fuselage band position needed adjusting. I could have redone the white base and the grey for a third time but not too many people will pick up on it (outside this forum that is...). The colour of the blue itself is a mix of a couple of different blues from the Vallejo range, I did write it down somewhere but I cant seem to find the piece of paper momentarily. I looked a the colours from two other builds (one on this site from
javlin
and one by Brett Green on his website) but think they both are a bit too light. I went for a tiny bit darker shade and I have to say I am pleased with the result. A close examination will reveal that I will need to touch up the white circles where I had some tiny bleeding under the tape, not a big deal but still irritating.
Next up I applied a red tail fin flash. Like both the grey and the blue I wanted to do some pre-shading to provide some subtle contrast to the final colour. You have to look closely but some delineation between the fin ribs and the fabric in between is there.
Finally, I managed to cut some very small swastikas from photo frisket film to finish off the tail. I know I could have just cut them out from the full tail-fin flash decals but I wanted to see how well I could create the stencil and then paint it without ruining the job to date.
Like the blue I was pretty chuffed with the outcome. They will need some tiny touch ups (along with the white background) but they came out pretty neat and I even got them centred in the white circle backgrounds - happy as!!
Next steps will be all the small touch-ups that I see are required, mostly for the white circles (as already noted) and also for the red tail fin flash where it wraps around the front. I didn't manage to get as clean a wrap around with the flexible masking tape as I would have liked. No big deal - just another touch up to add to the list.
Thanks to all that pop in for a look and/or comments. This one is ticking along slowly but at least I am getting small amounts done nearly every week. Its been very enjoyable up until now, we'll see how that feeling goes once we get to putting the top wing on!
Cheers!
