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G'day all,

I know it's not really wargaming, but I thought I might make a plog of a Bf 109 I'm working on. It's on old 1/48 scale Tamiya kit. Real life work is pretty hectic so I'm hoping this thread will keep me motivated to get it done! Hopefully shouldn't take more than a couple of weeks.

First up, the cockpit is done so I thought I'd grab some pics before I button it up. It's built out of box except for the seatbelts, which were scratch built from thin strips of masking tape and tiny little strands of copper wire, the buckles were very fiddly and it took a whole evening to do! Need to come up with a better method for future kits I think, might try sculpting them out of greenstuff.

The instrument panel was hand painted and I'm surprisingly happy with how it turned out, I was expecting it to be a mess given the entire panel is only about half an inch or less wide, but I'm glad I didn't waste money on an aftermarket one because it actually turned out half decent.

In hindsight, I should have done some airbrush shading of the cockpit. Been painting too many 1/72 planes lately where you can get away just painting it a single flat colour and then using an oil wash to bring it out, but 1/48 is a bit bigger and it looks a bit too flat. Oh well, I'll remember for next time!

Ok, I really suck at plogs

The 109 got a bit delayed, busy with work, then weather sucked too much for airbrushing, then when the weather improved I discovered I didn't have the colours I needed, lol. But finally got the basic camo done. This is a yellow nosed Battle of Britain style 109, so I still have to do the yellow details.

Came out reasonably well except a couple of areas I messed up because I was impatient and didn't wait long enough for the semi-gloss paint to cure between steps, kind of forgot how much longer semi-gloss takes to cure vs matte.

I'm going to shelve it for a couple of weeks to make sure the paint is fully cured and then try to polish out the screw ups, hopefully I can get away without having to repaint it!





Since this model is taking me longer than I expected, I'll turn this in to a general plog of my aircraft, so here's some other stuff I've been working on the past few weeks.

I scratch built this hinge on this 1/32 Spitfire from piano wire and brass. EXTREMELY fiddly, but it came out pretty nice, not sure how well it'll take paint though...


Masking a 1/72 FW190 markings cut from a silhouette portrait:


1/72 A6M2b Zero almost finished, the markings were airbrushed with stencils cut on the silhouette portrait...


Lining up the roundels on a 1/72 Hawker Tempest...


Griffon powered Spitfire almost finished, 1/72. The markings were done with a silhouette cameo, not a single decal on it, seat belts made from masking tape, otherwise it's built out of the box.






MkIXc Spitfire, 1/72, I'm using this guy as a testbed for the paint scheme I plan on using on my 1/32 Tamiya Spitfire, the Tamiya Spit is gorgeous and going to take me ages so I wanted to practice the scheme on something else first!

I wish they'd just include seatbelts in the kits themselves

I only got back in to aircraft recently and the first one really frustrated me because it's such a long endeavour that your mistakes live with you for a long time The nice thing about wargaming figures is they are so quick, if you screw one up you just move on to the next one.

But after the first one I started enjoying it again as it's rewarding when all the parts start coming together and the markings go on and it really starts to feel alive.

It's time consuming, but it's hard to compare because each and every aircraft I do like a "display" model, there's no "table top quality", if I painted all my wargaming figures to a display shelf quality they'd take me ages as well. I could paint 5 Night Goblins to table top quality in the time it takes me to mask a single canopy

 Guildenstern wrote:
beautiful! I don't envy you tho working with 1/72

Those Tamiya kits, omg so purdy!

Love the spitfires!

This is actually one of the old Tamiya kits from the mid 90's, so it's pretty basic compared to their newer stuff, but the fit and finish is really good and the detail is crisp.

The parts fit so well that the gaps are tiny, which for me actually makes things harder. When there's a huge crater of a gap down the fuselage I can do a better job of filling it, but with this really tiny hairline gap you'd THINK it'd be easier but I actually found it harder to fill it. But you appreciate the good fit when putting the cockpit and cowlings (with radiators, etc) together, it all just goes together nicely without any screwing around. I haven't even glued the cowlings on because the fit is so nice it just sits there by itself.

It's allllllllmost done. I still have to give it a gloss coat, decals, a bit of weathering and then a matte or satin coat and she'll be done! I won't do much weathering on it, just some panel line washes and exhaust stains I think. Maybe a little bit of paint scratching (often I use paint scratches to hide my screw ups ). The canopy is done, I'll just wait until the varnishing is done before attaching it.

I included a Night Goblin I was working on as well so people who aren't familiar with aircraft can get an idea of the scale.

This is a semi-fictional aircraft. It's based off a black and white picture I found of JG2 Richthofen Squadron during the Battle of Britain, I based the overall scheme off one of those aircraft, however in the picture most of the planes weren't numbered and I chose to make this guy "White 9".

Finished of the 1/72 North Africa Spitfire Mk IX.

I'm thinking of giving it a scenic base. What do you guys reckon, scenic base or just move on to the next aircraft?

It was a pretty average kit, it's one of airfix's older kits, not much detail and the detail it has was exaggerated way too much (panel lines look like canyons). I could have spent more time fixing it up, because it doesn't look great given the amount of effort I put in to it.

But this guy was just a test scheme for my 1/32 Tamiya Spitfire so I just wanted to get it done quickly to move on to the Tamiya kit. I intend to paint the big guy the same as the little guy. Overall I'm happy with how the colours turned out all except the "QJ" on the side of the fuselage which came out too dark, meaning it doesn't contrast and you can barely read it.

The 109 is finally done!

It gave me a lot of headaches in the end. It was supposed to be a quick thrown together kit, it turned in to a real nightmare of a learning experience. But anyway, here she is!