I have not been able to update much on progress for this model in the past month, my excuse is that I had to put up a "decorative privacy fence" between us and our drug-addicted next door neighbours. Of course the job involved a lot more than just putting up a set of screens, two weeping gum trees and one very large bottlebrush needed to be removed as well - nothing is ever simple.
Started with something like this (gum trees already removed by this stage, and a start made on the bottlebrush on the right)...
Ended up with something like this (it has been cleaned up a lot since this shot)...
Really happy with how straight and level it turned out - even ended up being plumb with the garage and house walls at either end (just luck??).
Sooooo, after a somewhat longer break than expected from this kit I have made some significant progress since last Sunday. What I have not done is take photos along the way. To be brutally honest, I am kind of over this kit. It's been a lot of fun, but it's taken me so long to get toward the finish that I am losing interest.
None the less - photos of where we are as of tonight.
In looking at these photos I can see that taking them under white LED's has made the RLM62 green look much "greener" than it is IRL. Same goes for the RLM65 blue so I'll try to get some better shots later in daylight.
Those of you with sharp eyes will note that I have a number of areas which need a touch up where the masking tape has pulled off the acrylic. I hope to do this later in the week or on Saturday.
I've noticed that the pre-shading I did has largely disappeared. Clearly I am a bit too heavy handed with the top coat application - I find I am still learning how to paint with acrylics. They are great in that they don't smell and clean up easily, but they do come off quite readily if you bump the model. Nothing that can't be fixed with a mineral based clear coat - just been too lazy to put one on between colour coats.
One trick that I learned with Vallejo acrylics is they work so much better through the airbrush if you use their thinner (and flow improver). I was originally using distilled water to thin them, but found I was getting a lot of spattering. I tried the flow improver with the distilled water - to no avail. Finally I bit the bullet and just used Vallejo thinners, the flow improver and voila - the brush worked beautifully. Smooth even paint with hardly any spatter even after setting the brush aside for a minute or two!
The other thing that I noticed is the white still looks REALLY white. I added some black and yellow to the white to tone it down, but even then it still looks quite stark. Another thing I must do is see if the "directional" shadowing I did on the rudder worked. Can't really tell from these photos, so I will check when I can look in full sunlight.
With respect to the pattern for the camouflage I went off the instruction manual and references to any period photos I could find tell me that it is wrong, but given it's my first go back in over 30 years I think I can live with it. Historical accuracy can come later - need to learn a lot of new techniques first.
So next stage is touch ups, closely followed by a good hard clear coat. I plan on using mineral based clear for this as it should form a more robust barrier against the knocks and bumps that are lifting the acrylic. If anyone has a better method I would love to hear about it. Still lots of the fiddly bits to do, such as U/C and prop. Will likely do those concurrent with getting some decals on the plane.
Again thanks to everyone for encouragement and advice. Time to get this one done as I have a Corsair up next!
Cheers