Airfix 1/48 Me 109 E

[tigerdriver]

In between my group build efforts I thought I would test what I am learning from my many mistakes by shovelling this together

Its never gonna be a contest winner or museum piece , but I love the 109 and will be a good learner for me.

Objectives will be

Get some more airbrush practice

Pick up some aftermarket details for the 1st time, to avoid the galland cliche

try and not make too many mistakes !!

Anyway ... having a bit of a sort out ...

 

[tigerdriver]

No idea why that picture is there twice ...

Anyway..

Next stop was to have a go at the old office

Cockpit is fairly sparce but a little colour, a little wash and a few colour details picked out and it doesnt look too bad

 

[tigerdriver]

The business area coming together

 

[tigerdriver]

The fit seems very good on this tooling , compared to some of the airfix i have messed about with ... so lets see what it looks like buttoned up

 

[tigerdriver]

I spent a bit of time trying to work on my tidying skills, i think i have a way to go to get the filling and sanding to the levels usually seen on here ... but i shovelled it together and waved the airbrush in the direction of the light blue rlm option

I had some issues getting the yellow to , well go yellow . Seems very translucent, despite several coats over a couple of days . I will try a white "primer" coat next time

The cowling is only blue tacked on for now so i can slip the nose guns in after painting .

 

[tigerdriver]

And so to the splinter camo up top. Tried to take my time masking and to spray clean .. fairly pleased with the outcome for my first go

The canopy has had some colouring in done too

Next i have to tackle the mottle ... So i am mostly painting bits of card at the moment, I would be be less than truthful to say its going well !!

Then some tidying up some details and i can think about bringing some more bits together and looking at the decals

 

[Airframes]

Good stuff so far. It's a nice kit, despite a couple of minor errors - I've got 5 of them to build for my BoB collection, along with another 3 from Hobbycraft and Tamiya.
Note that, if you're building the E4 versions, the canopy has been modelled from the RAF Museum example, which was restored using a canopy from a 'G' or 'Buchon'. Therefore, the centre frames need to be removed.

 

[meatloaf109]

Wow, 12 minutes! That has got to be a record!

 

[fubar57]

12 minutes!!!!! Nice scheme. If you want to get rid of that second picture, "Go Advanced", scroll down to "Manage Attachments" and you can delete it from there, coming from someone with way too much experience doing it.

Geo

 

[Crimea_River]

Quick job!

 

[tigerdriver]

lol not that fast just been kinda waiting to see if i managed to get to a stage where i wasnt too embarrased before starting the thread !!!

 

[Airframes]

Not that fast ?!! It's faster than a bl**dy Lightning F6 on full re-heat!
Slow down, have patience - quality and final result will improve tremendously if you take it steady. As you said yourself, you want to build your skills, so racing ahead is counterproductive to that aim.

 

[tigerdriver]

lol i know terry I am

Thats about 4 weeks work ... I just hadnt gotten around to starting the thread

 

[Wayne Little]

Doing a good job so far, keep the learnig process going!

 

[Airframes]

Ah, my apologies! I thought you'd done the lot in 12 minutes!

 

[tigerdriver]

no apology needed mate !!

To be honest it took me all my time just to get the pics loaded in 12 mins lol . And it usually takes me more than 12 mins to get the airbrush firing one colour how i like it ..

I am slowing down, trying to think ahead and build in an order to make life easier rather than necessarily following the destructions and looking at pics all the time ... Still only model 3 and 1st with the airbrush working properly, so have to be realistic too

 

[tigerdriver]

Well my first ever go at mottling ... I dont think the airbrush masters on here are gonna lose any sleep, but after the mess I made of my crash test model i decided to have a go with a hairy stick for now and keep practicing with the airbrush

I am thinking it wont look too bad with some decals and weathering ...

 

[woody]

Doing good keep it up.

 

[meatloaf109]

A couple of tricks for you to try out, Take a 3x5 recipe card or something similar, and cut a couple of small blob shaped holes through it. Hold it about a quarter inch (or closer)away from your airplane side and shoot paint through it. And there is the tried and true Q-tip method of mottling. Kind of like dry-brushing, but a little wetter and make the blobs with a Q-tip, easy!
Keep it up, we got your back!

 

[fubar57]

I've had some success using home made decals that have the sprayed on effect and don't forget, some mottles were brush painted on real aircraft.

Geo