**** DONE: GB-36 1/48 Mitsubishi J2M Raiden - Axis Manufactured Aircraft of WWII

[turbo]

Good one Michael. Looking forward to following along. I will be zero help on Japanese subjects.

Ha, nice pun Andy!

Michael, in addition to the techniques covered in the links above, I find black-basing (as shown in post #14 above) a very powerful technique for cockpit interiors to create shadows and depth. By judicious spraying of the cockpit colour at different angles and coverage levels over black and subsequent highlighting and drybrushing, you can create all sorts of effects. As an example, I tried to achieve this on the cockpit forward bulkhead which would be in a shadowy location for my Corsair build.

 

[parsifal]

Time for me to put paint to plastic I think.......

 

[Wayne Little]

I will try not to hold the one flaw in his character (being a Queenslander) against him too much.......

Yeah...fair enough...

 

[parsifal]

First blows


Pre-shading of cockpit parts with X-18 semi gloss black

 

[Crimea_River]

Off to the races Michael. Checking to make sure there's no pun there.

 

[parsifal]

Application of basecoat XF-71 cockpit green

(I added about 20% X-2 white for the IP back board, to make it somewhat lighter to its surroundings

 

[Wurger]

 

[Crimea_River]

Looks great. Another thing you can do now if you want is pick out the high points using a fine brush and the same colour lightened just slightly. Or, use the slightly lightened paint but dry-brush it on. I used the former technique on my current 109 build. The drybrushed highlights look like this:

 

[Wayne Little]

Good work Michael

 

[parsifal]

Some steady progress I think

So after applying the preshading (black_ and the main coat (XF71) I then applied post shading, being a very thinned down mix of XF-64 (Red brown) with about 50% thinner in the paint mix. I still cant work out if I like it or not, but the acrylic dried almost immeditley on application.

next I dry brushed with yellow green XF-4, which seemed to work really well. I also did some dry brushing in aluminium. before that I painted the console faces in gunmetal as a not quite black finish .

I applied some do dads to the wall, painting most of them either black or silver. most of the bits are scratch built, or salvaged from spare parts so I really didn't try to be all that historical, rather just trying to build the vibe.

I built and attached an additional console for the starboard side side wall, and used some dial decals that I made myself a couple of years ago.

On the port side, I used mostly scrounged parts from previously completed kits, so most of the bits are actually from 1/72 scale . A couple of the bits are made from various raw materials .

The harness I made myself, from this stuff I bought from an art supplies shop. The buckles are from unused PE parts from my just completed huey.

I added a few colour flashes of red and green mostly for interest.

If anything the techniques ive tried to apply have ended up being badly over done. ive got to learn how to restrain these techniques a little so that the end product does not look so beaten up.....

 

[le_steph40]

 

[Wurger]

 

[Crimea_River]

I like the added bits and pieces but agree that you probably overdid the post shading. Your application and choice of colours for this technique has resulted in your original green colour being essentially obliterated. In post shading, you want to maintain the original colour for the most part but apply a very subtle variation of of the same colour, slightly lightened or darkened with a VERY thin mix of paint to thinner. Your 50/50 mix of paint and thinner has a lot of paint in it and will result in very little control of the effect. A thinner mix (say 1 paint to 3 thinner) applied at low pressure (10 to 15psi) will give you the flexibility to squirt on a little paint at a time and to inspect the results as you go.

I really like that you are trying these new techniques Michael and hope that you continue to experiment with them. Keep it up man!

 

[parsifal]

Thanks Andy, the useful criticism is very much appreciated.

The question now is whether there is anything I can do about the mess, without losing or damaging the gains made in other areas.

I do have a plan.

The main problem is the floor pan. The fuselage sidewalls are not as bad, and will be covered for the most part, so I can live with those. I want to keep the console faces and, the foot pedal controls and the sidewall additions that ive made. The pilot seat is dry fitted only at this stage. .

So the pan is basically to remove the pilots seat, cover the console faces and foot controls. I will then respray with a coat of XF-71 at 50/50, let that dry.

I will then re-apply the green/yellow dry brush to the corners and raised elements (but there aren't many to do really in this area).

Then I will be ready to again tackle the area wher I think I went wrong, the overwash. I will be re-applying the XF 64, but this time VERY thinly, probably 75/25 and with reduced air pressure (current pressure is 20psi, will reduce by 25% as suggested).

I think some of the problem was the number of passes I did with the overwash, so I intend to keep the passes for this coat to minimum

 

[Wurger]

Sounds good. But .... would it be easier just to re-make the weathering with the cockpit green?

 

[parsifal]

I guess. How to achieve that though? I'm thinking just re-apply the Cockpit green, but as a very thinned down coat.

 

[Wurger]

I think you may use either a brush or a Q-tip. Or just in the same way you applied the brown colour.

 

[Airframes]

It's looking good Michael, and a noticeable upgrade in techniques and application.

 

[turbo]

I'm with Andy Michael, for post-shading I will thin my paint anywhere up to 1:9 paint:thinner depending on what I'm doing and build the effect up slowly.

I also have a suggestion for your plan from here. To turn a negative into a positive, the combination of colours and textures you now have on the floor could act as a very interesting pre-shade. Thin your XF-71 down perhaps to 25% or less, then get in as close as possible with your airbrush at low pressure and start spraying tight swirls and squiggles. Build this up slowly in layers and you will begin to see interesting effects emerge that resemble fading and wear. Stop when you are happy with the effect.

You then may wish to go back and do some further post-shading, but again thin the paint well and build it up slowly. The final painting step is to highlight any raised detail through painting with a fine brush or drybrushing. Your drybrushing of the seat above appears a bit heavy. Your brush should have virtually no paint on it and the drybrushing should impart a subtle highlighting effect, but not look like a separate colour.

The final weathering step then might be an oil wash.

Good luck!

 

[parsifal]

Thanks to all. Great advice as usual.