The Little World

If you want to be nervous, spray an undercoat of grey or white on your model kit. Then you’ll see just how good you were at spotting gaps and crevices. Of course then you’ll get a chance to correct them with putty or paint and you can get set to get nervous a second time.

This is when you start to lay colour coats on the model. No matter whether you are doing it with a brush, an airbrush, or a rattle can, there is a small moment of time when you are frightened. What if I make a stuff-up? What if the mistake is irrepairable? What if I never want to finish the kit or see it ever again? What if I am just being OVERLY- DRAMATIC!!!! Aaaaaargh!

Pardon me. I’ll be myself in a minute.

But then you launch into the painting and eventually it all seems to fall into place. Either you get the job done or you run out of paint. Mostly it is the former, rather than the latter. If you are wise enough not to touch anything for a day it all falls into place.

In my case the paint is the redoubtable Mr. Color semi-gloss black spray can. The definitive Bomber Command undersurface. Coal-black with a slight sheen. You need fear no searchlights when your bottom is covered by this paint. This is the paint that Justin Trudeau favours when he parties… Ahem…

But you cannot ever be sure that it will go where you want it to – particularly if the paint rack obscures part of the fuselage or wing. In my case the leading edges were light-on and the nose had a bald patch. What to do?

What to do is to pull up your BGP and make impromptu masks for the unpainted portions. Then secure the plane to the painting turntable and let fly with the Mr. Color can at the tiny areas exposed. The nature of the lacquer is that it will fill in the bald patches and blend with the established coat. You need to do this within a short period of time to allow for the extra paint to melt into the former layer.

Thankfully…it worked.