The Little World

Not for their food, or wines, or railway trains – which are excellent. Not for their beautiful women or their wise philosophers.

Damn them for their aero camouflage schemes. Particularly the three-colour ones used in the 1930’s and 1940’s. They are hell to paint.

The colours are fine – I like grey undersides. British Sky or American Neutral Grey are fine on their respective national aircraft. The topside blue-grey, burnt sienna, and dark green are excellent; an attractive palette. It is the patterning that’s the problem.

I should not worry if I was painting a full-sized Morane- Saulnier or Bloch or whatever. Apart from the fact that it would be a shitty fighter plane to begin with and my foot might go through the wing, I could spray on the variegated patches and then go off to a long lunch. But trying to mask and paint the same patterns in 1:72 is proving nearly impossible.

Conventional putty masking and re-masking make it an unattractive use of time, but free-hand patterning is always crude and unconvincing. It requires a better hand at the airbrush than appears on the end of my shirt cuff, I can tell you.

There IS a way. I am convinced of it. I just have not discovered it yet. I am hoping it is a cheap dodge that can be done with ingredients in the pantry. Possibly paté de fois gras and camembert, which would be delightfully appropriate.