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Spitfire Mk.I

painting

After this the elevators were cut out to allow for a more animated positioning and pre-shading was applied with Tamiya Flat Black. The camouflage painting was then applied using Tamiya tape for masking where necessary. Underside painting was done with Polly Scale Sky and a "Night" color which is actually a mix of Tamiya red brown (about 4 parts) and Tamiya flat black (about 15 parts); this allowed me to have some preshading show through the very dark color. The upper colors were Polly Scale RAF Dark Earth and Polly Scale Dark Green. I’m still trying to learn to use Polly Scale’s paint, which tends to clog my airbrush and in the process lost a lot of the preshading due to my difficulties with it. However, that being said, I do really like the paint and will continue to work with it and figure it out.

Then I decided to be really brave and to try painting on the codes. These pictures are actually my second attempt; the first was really bad, had to be removed, the camouflage in that area repainted, and then codes tried again. The left side came out pretty good, but on the right side the QJ slipped / tilted slightly without my realizing it until the masks were removed. I just couldn’t bring myself to go through the whole process for a third time, so I decided it was 'good enough' and actually, the angle of the picture makes it appear much worse than it appears when looking at the model. In fact the people I have pointed it out to say they wouldn’t have noticed if I hadn’t had pointed it out. Hopefully this is true…

After that it was fairly smooth sailing. I gloss coated with future, applied Aeromaster decals, a Polly Scale Grimy Black wash, and a Polly Scale flat coat. Further weathering was done with pastel chalk, airbrush, silver pencil, etc. Another first on this model was the use of dry transfers for the stencils. Wow! I really liked those. I got mine from Hobby Decal (www.hobbydecal.com) and they worked very well. I would recommend trying them for at least one build just to see how nice they are.

Conclusion

Throughout this build, not only did I pester him many times asking questions, but I relied heavily on Mal’s great spitfire online build. If you are going to be building a spitfire, I would definitely encourage you to check that out multiple times as it helped me add many small details I otherwise wouldn’t have (like creep marks on the wheels). In summary, the Tamiya spitfire kit is excellent, was easy enough to allow me to try new things and still end up with a pretty nice finished model. I highly recommended to any level of modeler. It was so enjoyable, in fact, that I figure I’ll try another one in the future…