Category: Painting
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Savoia Marchetti S.79 Sparviero – Part Six – It’s All A Whitewash

And all the better for it. Never mind whitewash in politics or on your back fence. When you whitewash a model it is a sign that you are getting somewhere. In this case it is Mr Base White 1000 diluted and blown on with a single-action airbrush. The white 1000 is about as good as…
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Savoia Marchetti S.79 Sparviero – Part Four – The Green Of A Service Station

A service station on the Autostrada. At 4:35 PM on August 7th. With the door open and the smell of pasta sauce in the air. Not that watery sort of sauce – the real thick stuff. Well, you need to know what you want to do before you do it, or you’ll never know whether…
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Sitting Out The Setting…

This is the most critical time for a modeller. The point where they display either admirable character and sensible judgement…or a complete lack of either quality. I do not invite judgement but I have bought my bus ticket out of town just in case. The coat of paint is touch-dry. Yet I know it is…
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Dewoitine D.520 – Part Three – C’est Fini

And fini’d very well, I might add. The usual number of minor errors and hidden mistakes, but then that is par for the course. The D.520 paint job is not perfect – I was trying the freehand spray technique with the pressure on the airbrush turned down to 8 psi and a very thin mixture.…
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Dewoitine D.520 – Part Two – C’est l’Avalanche

One cannot do a Hobby Boss kit slowly – the very nature of the simple moulding does not lend itself to the dawdler. You either do it in normal speed and accept that you will progress rapidly or lapse into ennui. That is my philosophical explanation for the Dewoitine on a stick that you see…
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Mitsubishi Dinah – Part Three – Standing Room Only…

The Mitsubishi Type 100 – the Dinah – was delivered to the Japanese Army Air Force in several versions – bomber, reconnaissance plane, trainer, etc. and there were several configurations of nose and canopy. The thin nose and multi-step greenhouse is characteristic of the training aircraft – probably to allow and instructor to oversee the…
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Mitsubishi Dinah – Part Two – The Bright Bird

I knew at the outset that the Dinah in IJAF trainer colours was rather special. The yellow is not the pure chrome of the RAF or RCAF trainers nor the red/yellow of a prewar US Navy aircraft wing – it has a distinct orange glow to it. I wasn’t sure whether the plastic that the…
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RCAF Twin Otter – Part Six – Over The Line

Way-hay – completed the De Havilland Twin Otter before teatime. And onto the photo floor just afterwards. The planned assembly of the plane went well – I propped the fuselage up on the jig and glued one wing and supporting strut with liquid cement. An hour later I was able to flip it over and…
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RCAF Twin Otter – Part Five – The Clown Car

Sorry about that, Folks…but you have to admit that bright yellow and red has a certain circus feel to it. In this case a flying circus without the WW1 reference. The illustrations for this sort of aircraft paint job are nearly always spectacular – remember what I wrote about box art being based around yellow…
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RCAF Twin Otter – Part Four – The Canvas Stretched

The Twin Otter fuselage is closed, puttied, and smoothed. The wings are ready for their undercoat. All the ancillary parts are stuck to bits of matchstick or alligator clips awaiting the airbrush. It’s at this point that sprue trees in a box have become an aircraft. There’s still plenty of work to do but the…
