Spitfire Mk. IX - Airfix 1/72

[WolfRacer]

Hey All!

Here's a 1/72 Spit that I finished off a month or two back, thought I'd share.

This was a "test scheme" for a 1/32 Tamiya Spitfire IX that's currently on my work bench.

Learned a few lessons, mainly "be careful what gloss varnish you use", "Gunze acrylics feel tough but remain delicate to solvents for a long time", and "make your airbrushed shades a touch stronger otherwise they get lost when you do panel lines later"

Smaller stencils are from the kit's decals, larger markings and stencils were masked and airbrushed (including the EN512, which is why it's a bit weird looking). The paint I mixed for the "QJ" was too dark, but it's damned near impossible to tell until you yank the mask off, by which time it's too late to fix, but I'll try and not make the same mistake on his 1/32 brother!

 

[fubar57]

You masked and painted the s/n.......in 1/72.........brilliant!!!

 

[WolfRacer]

I have a little die cutter which makes life a bit easier for making the masks. The s/n is a bit smaller than the die cutter will happily do, so there was a bit of fiddly cutting with a hobby knife, but still much easier than doing it from scratch.

 

[Wurger]

 

[Airframes]

Nicely done.

 

[ArmouredSprue]

Brilliant! Love the scheme and general weathering.
Cheers

 

[Crimea_River]

Very well done. Can you show us or describe that die cutter a bit more? I'm keen to try more masking myself.

 

[WolfRacer]

Thanks for the compliments all!

Very well done. Can you show us or describe that die cutter a bit more? I'm keen to try more masking myself.

It's an electronic cutter, Silhouette brand. It's just a cheap little thing so the accuracy isn't brilliant, the serial number on the side of that Spit is about 2.5-3mm tall and it's about as good as you'll get out of it, I had to use a hobby knife to clean up some miscuts.

I think it probably depends what scale you model at whether it's a good idea; 1/72 it's a challenge; 1/48 isn't bad, you can do most of the markings; 1/32 you can probably do all but the smaller stencils.

With mine I cut vinyl masks and Tamiya tape masks (the 40mm wide rolls). The vinyl produces slightly less accurate lines (position wise, you can tell circles aren't perfect circles), but I find it to be a more reliable masking material and you can cut smaller designs. The tape gives you more accurate lines (circles look like circles), but when you try and cut really small designs (like the serial number on this model) then it starts to pull up as it cuts which in turn stops it from cutting properly.

Don't buy one thinking it'll save you time though I seem to spend a couple of nights on the computer making the designs and doing test cuts then another couple of nights actually masking and airbrushing the markings, lol, so all in all it slows me down considerably compared to decals. A lot of the markings on the Tamiya Bf109 in my other thread were also done using the Silhouette cutter...

1/48 Bf 109 E4 - Tamiya | WW2Aircraft.net Forums

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks very much for the reply. My wife has a "Cricket" cuter but its software is very limited. Saw your 109 and commented - great model!

The vinyl that you use for the masks - where do you get the blank sheets?

 

[Gnomey]

Lovely work!

 

[WolfRacer]

Thanks very much for the reply. My wife has a "Cricket" cuter but its software is very limited. Saw your 109 and commented - great model!

The vinyl that you use for the masks - where do you get the blank sheets?

The Cricut cutters are (from what I understand) far better than the cheaper Silhouette ones, but Cricut are much more expensive and I couldn't justify the price.

The free Silhouette software is pretty terrible. Apparently the Silhouette software that you pay extra for is much better but I can't bring myself to pay even more money for software, lol. If I'm only making simple designs (like text for which I have the font installed) then I do it in Silhouette software, otherwise I make the designs in other vector graphics programs and import them in to Silhouette's software for cutting. The free Silhouette software can deal with .DXF files, apparently the paid one can also import other formats.

So I make most of my designs in a program like Inkscape (open source variant of Adobe Illustrator, if you already have Illustrator that's better) or a CAD program then export a DXF which I read in to the Silhouette. Check if your Cricut software can import other vector formats like EPS, PS, DXF, PDF, SVG or similar.

As for the vinyl, I just bought it from the same arts and crafts store I bought the machine itself from. Signwriters go through miles of the stuff and some hobby shops sell them, the craft store I bought my cutter from sells it in A4 sheets, a pack of 5 for a few bucks, I've done 4x 1/72 aircraft and 1x 1/48 aircraft and I've only used a single A4 sheet so far.

I bought matte white vinyl sheets because I figured it'd be the least likely for paint to bead up on them than glossy ones, but I haven't tested anything else to know if my guess was right.

Also, if your wife uses the Cricut for scrap booking, buy yourself a fresh blade and don't let her touch it you want a really sharp blade for cutting masks.

 

[djos]

Looking perfect, only azure blue for my eyes looks little darker than i like, but ....doesn't matter. Great model!
Regards

 

[WolfRacer]

Thanks! Interesting what you say about the Azure Blue as it's actually a bit more pale than it came out of the bottle, it was Gunze's lacquer Azure Blue. I compared it to Testors and Testors looked a bit paler in the bottle, but once you paint it on a surface and it dries out Testors and Gunze looked pretty similar.

 

[T Bolt]

Real nice. Hard to beleave its not 1/48

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks for the extensive reply on the cutter and masks. I have adobe illustrator installed on one of my machines and may yet explore compatibility with the Cricut machine.

 

[JKim]

Great work especially for 1/72 scale. Interesting info on the mask cutter too!

 

[ArmouredSprue]

Great work especially for 1/72 scale. Interesting info on the mask cutter too!

Thanks mate

 

[Wildcat]

I like it!