That perfect yellow paint edge makes me want to kick you in the shin out of jealousy. I can't get that clean an edge on a flat surface.

Maybe you should hold your tongue right while swearing a lot under your breath, I find that seems to help somewhat.


Got some wing action in before bed. Top one is a dust coat and then two thin or maybe three thin coats, lower is five.





Once i lay the next darker colour ...





...the worst of the jiggly preshading on the flaps will hopefully just be a hint. Any of the remaining that looks off on the right wing i will go over with a last thin coat. Once it's cleared, washed, decaled and flatted out i think we will be fine.

Ajay, you are one of the incredible modeler's I have seen. Your work is so amazingly detailed, and exactly how I want my models to look when I unbox them. They never do...

Luckily I can come here and view these works of art. This a spectacular kit to really show off your skills mate!

Between Goon, and now Ajay, we are very lucky here at SimHQ to have these guys carrying us along on their creative journeys.

Keep up the great work!

Thanks muchly Chunk, i never thought i would be able to knock out a model as half as good as i can to be honest I'm glad other people enjoy them as much as i do with others work.

Nixer, probably time you started adding some ships or something mate, i mean i already laid out a nice tutorial for you to follow and you have veins full of salt so no excuses



Laid down the most of the rest of camo this morning and tonight, still the tail and then the splotching to go. First off the final coats of RLM02. I had to keep on checking it under different lighting as the preshading felt like a fine line in between too much or losing it under any more coats, i chose not wanting to lose it and put down the gun.







After most of the day under the lamps i went on a taping spree to help keep Tamiya stock afloat. The Vallejo/windex mix at a near 50:50 ratio seems amazing so far, sticks like the proverbial and the tape plus me constantly handling it hasn't bothered it in any way.






All taped up and nowhere to go..






Sprayed up with the RLM71, i let it sit for a couple of minutes before i start peeling. This is like the cool nervous moment, did it leak, did i mask good enough, will it pull up?






and then the reveal, can you believe i had that much tape on there? It felt like i was going to find tutankhamun! What is weird is how close i thought the two colours looked when i was laying down the thin coats of RLM71 and then how far apart they actually are when the tape came off.






More than happy with how nice the lines came out, a little bit of touch up near the tail needed but i knew that in advance owing to the curve where the fuselage meets the tail join/reinforcing plate.












The other one still awaits.




I'll get this one to the point of decalling and then move on to painting the desert version and then decal them together. Now that i know the Vallejo windex combo is sweet it's the weathering that has me worried. I've sprayed the crappy Warspite base with paint and then a couple of coats of the floor varnish and will will attack it tomorrow with some oil paints and white spirits. My main worry is wearing through the varnish when rubbing with a cloth or cotton buds so i need to find out how much i can play with it, and how easily it cleans up if i don't like a certain colour or am too heavy handed.

So I can imagine after the last bit of tape came off and you backed up a bit to look at it, the reaction was to stand up, rub your head with both hands, exhale heavily, and then start to chuckle with glee.

Awesome work.

Pretty close, i'm really liking the Vallejo and am staring at all of this Tamiya paint wondering how long the shelf life is!

Camo done and yellowed the rudder. Laid down the RLM70 black green but the strip looked a bit thin so i widened it later. Still looks weird though.








Final taping in readiness for the fuselage mottling. I was going to attempt a cardboard mask idea but it didn't pan out so put the psi down to about 8 and sprayed as gently as my finger would allow and just hoped for the best. The mottling is a the same as the upper wing wing colours, RLM02 first and then the RLM71.










The wing stripe widened. There is a slight hump in the middle of each wing root that makes a straight line slightly frustrating and I'm unsure at this point if i should widen it the same again towards the fuselage (exactly 1mm) or leave it as is. Then again once i can do some slight weathering and try out some chipping effect pencils and matt it all down it should all blend in better and not seem so stark.

I was wondering how you were going to do that!

Such clean paint lines!

Ajay, you need to take a photo with the model in your hand to show just how small the model is.

I'll do one when she is finished Krazi

Cleared for decals and weathering and under the lamps. I'll move onto the desert one now and get it to the same stage. Bottom pic shows the bulges at the wing roots i was talking about earlier, main wing spar?

Really nice paint job - considering how you started off this year with no paintbrush, you really learned very quickly.

I've been trying to figure this out using different clues, and my guess is that this thing is ridiculously small.

wing span: 8.15"" for the 109., 8.6" for the 190.

Printer paper is 11" x 8.5"

In WWII aircraft modeling you have two choices: ridiculously small 1/48 scale or ridiculously expensive 1/32 scale.

Plus, 1/32 scale WWII fighters aren't really that big either.

and 1/72 which is pretty common, no thanks!

Knocked out the desert camo yesterday.

Primed up







Preshading, i should have used a the sand colour with a dab of black instead of straight black, it took way too many coats to get it were i wanted it.







Ready for the white wingtips, fuselage band and nose stripe.







The white went down really nicely, i've been surprised how good the yellow and white have been to get to full colour.











and finally the yellow lower cowl section, needs some touch up and then after a day under the lamps i hope to clear it tonight.









Gotta run and go clean the father in laws solar panels and do his gutters! Have a good one all.

Sweet looking aircraft.

Decals all done on the Trop. A nice peaceful couple of hours was spent with some music and the cat asleep at my feet.







Now the spooky part, weathering. I ended up getting hold of an enamel based wash, dark and a brown/dirt version. The Molders 109 is my lacky, the decals have all been cleared and it has sat for 24 hours so full steam ahead. The overall clear has been curing for at least four days. The guy at the model shop assured me that mineral turps would be fine to wipe it off with and an earlier test seemed to prove him right.







It was a bit of a pain to get off and even light rubbing with a clean rag had some minor issues with some discolourisation. It always seems to work so beautifully in those youtube videos! It did out the detail a lot better than just leaving it the solid colours and blended in with the pre shading pretty nicely.







This is why i said spooky. No stopping once you've started





Once i've finished weathering the complete model i will be touching up some areas that stand out and adding some small chips were some paint has worn through and hopefully it all comes together. I feel like this whole effect is still eluding me a bit though. I think i will do the Trop with the oil paint and white spirits over the enamel and turps, it seemed a lot easier for clean up and nowhere near as sticky.

The detail level on that wing is insane.