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Ta183 Bat Plane!

Hand Brushing It

I hand brushed the fuselage with Polly S RLM 22 Night Black. I brushed in between the panel lines, keeping my brush strokes to a minimum by using several thin coats and very soft Tamiya brushes. The center portions of the wings, the pylons and the canopy framing were painted with Polly S RLM 66 Black-Grey. The metal area by the exhaust was hand brushed with Model Master Metallizer Titanium. This had the brush strokes erased with SNJ aluminum polishing powder. The wheel wells were painted Model Master Acryl RLM 02 and the oleos painted Metalizer aluminum. The main oleos were then coated with Tamiya clear red, again to add color to an otherwise all-dark aircraft. After this was dry, I hand brushed Johnson’s Future Floor Polish to gloss up the flat paint for the decals.

The national insignia’s and fuel triangles came from the kit with the ugly spider on the tail coming from a Microscale sheet, as did the Richtofen "R". A recently acquired Italeri F6F kit gave up its snarl and this was added to the model. The Italeri decal looked like it was going to put up a fight and silver all to hell, but after shoving Solvaset down it’s throat, it decided to snuggle done without so much as a whimper. Ha! Tamiya Flat Base was mixed with Future in a 1:5 ratio and this was applied, again with a Tamiya brush. A wash of light grey oil paint was applied to highlight the recessed panel lines and tone down the blackness of the paint job. The wheel wells were given a wash of very dirty thinner. You know, the sludge that builds up in the bottom of your thinner bottle after cleaning your brushed in it for six months.

Copyright ©2002 - Text and Photos by Val Bueno. All Rights Reserved.