The Little World

Ansons…I couldn’t get the plain variety so this is the one with resins…I mean raisins…

Currently it is raisin’ my blood pressure.

I was nearly right by the time I got to spraying the grey undercoat on the ship. I’d filled and sanded as much as I thought I could decently do, and resisted the temptation to launch the Mk 1 from the top of the roof. The grey went on well – Tamiya spray cans always seem to be decent products. I’ve kept their grey and red oxide in since the start as undercoats or finish spray and never had a failure.

The engine nacelles and side windows are plugged with Uhu yellow putty. The cockpit and nose are masked with tape as the Micro Mask peeled off when I tried to trim it. I’m not so sure about it as a product now, but I’ll try it as a way of laying one camouflage colour over another when I go back to matt paints – it may need more of a ” tooth ” in the surface to grip.

The grey shot was actually a test image to see how far the 18-55 Fujinon lens will cover if you set it at 22mm. It has the ability to stop down to f:22. I compared it with a similar shot using a Discover 25mm f:1.8 and even though the 25mm is a prime lens, the Fujinon beats it for focus and resolution by a mile. That’s quite a span from wingtip to wingtip in model photography terms. In the end, you can rarely beat the actual maker’s native lenses for most things.

Okay – on with the motley. The plan this time is to use Humbrol enamels rather than Tamiya or Mr. Hobby acrylics. The Trainer yellow was mixed up from two tins of Humbrol gloss yellow and a half teaspoon of satin red. There’s plenty in case it proves to be a good idea.

The bottom side got shot with a thin coating of the yellow after dinner one evening and was dry by next morning – but with some disconcerting dust or hairs in some sections of the coat. These may be an artifact of the spray gun, something left behind after rubbing down the undercoat, or drift-ins from the rest of the workshop. Fortunately they rubbed off with a paper towel, but I’ll have to be more careful in the future – the paper cover over the spray booth after the first coat on the topside of the ship should stop the drift of dust in the air.

Note that this hobby is still in the experimental stage for me – hence the Humbrol trial. I accept that I’ll need to wait longer for the paint to set than with acrylic so I may breach my rule of only one model at a time to utilise spare hours. And I shall also try something that I’ve been seeing on YouTube; the deliberate finishing of plastic models with brush painting rather than airbrushing. It may not be quite as retrograde as you might think in some cases.