The Little World

A confession – I was courting when ” A Whiter Shade Of Pale ” was new on the charts and I tried to be cool by dancing to it. It goes on longer than a Methodist sermon but without the jazzy language or uptempo beat… I hated it then and I hate it now. The music – not the sermons.

But back to the Coastal Command Wellington. Whiter than white on the underside and that is then  extended all the way up the fuselage and onto the fin. Presumably it blended into the North Atlantic haze and clouds so that the planes could stalk U-boats. I note that the topside went from standard British brown and green – and this is one that will have that camo pattern – to a two-tone sea grey scheme later on.

The white has the best possible basis in a white undercoat and it might have been thought that I could have gotten away with the airbrush and a pot of Mr. Color for the coverage. Possibly, but I knew I was going to be covering a large area and wanted to be able to do it in one pass. So I popped for a can of Mr. Color spray in ” Character White “. I suspect this is intended for gundam painting, but I find it ideal for all my military CC schemes. I keep a pot of it for touchup and details.

The Italeri/MPM Wellington without turrets has one real advantage; you can pass a substantial wooden stick up the bum of the aircraft and keep it upright safely on a stand. This let me rotate it while spraying and that let the paint fall evenly all over. Once that was done it was whisked away to the drying cabinet and the security guard was instructed not to let me near it for a day.

The result is a perfect fuselage and fin. The paint still allows the pattern of the geodesic structure under the wing to show through.

I admire this paint. And their satin black is a perfect night bomber colour.

Actually, the plane will be a tribute to rattle cans as I plan to use a couple of Tamiya aircraft colours on the top of the wing and the fuselage panel. I must have bought them yonks ago but they need to be used.

Addendum: The paintwork on this was so good that I did not need to gloss it out to get good decal coverage. The only thing after these sprays were the roundels and flashes and then Testor’s Dullcote.