Here is my first attempt to building an allied aircraft and I chose one of my favorites for personal reasons. The Spitfire was my first build that I remembered my dad building for me when I was much younger. For the build, I decided to purchase Tamiya's kit in 1/48 due to it's simplicity, scale and detail. I also purchased Eduard's PE set that included seat belts, instrument dash and other misc details.

Below are pix of the assembly of the cockpit. I had to remove some of the plastic details to incorportate the PE components.


Next, I primes and painted the interior with model master RAF interior green.





This was followed by adding some of the PE details and painting some of the components of the cockpit:





That's it for now. Next in the agenda will be the application of a wash to the interior and joining the fuselage along with the cockpit details. Till next time, cheers and thanks for watching!

Hermann

Looking great so far Hermann, I look forward to more progress on this one.

Cheers, D

Very Nice Hermann!!!

I guess this is much more straight forward than the Eduard kit, isn't it

all the best

Steffen

Thanks Damian and Steffen. The kit so far almost builds itself (it's definitely a nice change of pace when compared to the Eduard builds) ..very little issues so far. I've managed to add a bit of a wash using promodellers clay wash. This was applied after a coat of Future.








After that ..I proceeded to join the fuselage halves. I did have to deal with annoying seams on the fuselage which were easily sanded down




I then assembled the wings and attached them to the fuselage ..it's slowly taking shape and starting to resemble a plane.






Next will be the assembly of the under carriage, followed by masking the canopy.

Cheers,

Hermann

The undercarriage is built and the canopy was masked using Eduard's mask set for this kit (i know...im just too lazy to cut out the tape myself and sticky tape is not one of my best friends).




Next step was to prime the kit and add the preshade. This time around, I'm trying out Tamiya's Fine surface primer and thank you to all that recommended this product for it worked wonderful.




Now it's time to let it all dry before we start with the main painting and cammo. For that stage, I'm going to use ModelMaster's acrylics. The cammo with receive RAF dark green and dark gull grey. The underside will receive flat gull grey. The first thing that I'm going to do will be to paint the cammo starting with the dark green followed by the gull grey. More of that to come.

Hermann

Hi Hermann

Very nice progress!... personally I am not a big fan of preshading because mine always looks like your last pic .. evreything black and when I added the bottom colour nothing is left of the effect ... maybe cosider a method I had seen at Jakub "Kubrt" Vilingr's Avia B-33





(the pix are larger but i forced them to 800 px width -->right click > show pic)

all the best

Steffen

Steffen, thanks for sharing that technique ..I'll have to research it a bit more since the results are stunning. You also seem to have beat me to the punch since I recently started my Tamiya P-47D "bubbletop" as well. I'll have to post build soon. The reason was that I bent the needle to my Iwata AB and wanted to use the idle time wisely as I waited for spare parts. I've managed to assemble as much of the cockpit, wings and ordinace that I could before it came time to paint those parts. The needle arrived yesterday so I should be back in business soon.

P.S. I ordered my first modern jet yesterday so we'll see how well that goes. I ordered Revell's F-15E and EF-2000 Typhoon along with an assortment of Eduard PE and masks for them.

Cheers,

Hermann

We are back in business ...I primed the kit using Tamiya's fine surface primer and proceeded to paint the upper surface with a coat of ModelMaster's acrylic RAF dark green.



I then proceeded to mask the craft to apply the individual cammo strands using ModelMaster dark gull grey





I think that we get the point ..this will take some time so I'll post when the cammo has been fully applied. Thanks again for watching.

Cheer,

Hermann

Hi Hermann

looks good so far!!

May I ask why you applied the darker colour first? My normal procedure would be vice versa .. except special cases (difficult masking and the like)

all the best

Steffen

Thanks Steffen! The main reason was that I figured the dark green covered more real estate. Thus, it would make masking for the gull gray a bit easier.

Looking really good hermon cant wait to see it finished.
ill be watching till the end.



Build On,
Justin

Thanks Justin ..I'm happy to have you along for the ride. This is the fun part of the build but I'm finding it hard to allocate the time needed to finish. Slowly but surely it will be finished. By the way, what part of the sunshine state are you from?

Cheers,

Hermann

Very nice job done in the pit ! Looking forward to more progress

Hermann, nice name by the way.

Your cockpit looks awsome. The overall quality of this build so far is also great.
I noticed you're using Model Master acrylic paints. I use them quite a bit on smaller bits and pieces but have had major problems with the paint sticking to large plastic surfaces. Seems no matter how long I let the base coat set, as soon as I lay tape on it it will peel the paint right back off. Is there any secret you are using?

Hermon

Thanks Hermon. I do like the use of modelmaster's acrylics because of it's consistency ..it's quite runny and usually does not clog up my AB. But as a result, I do need to prime the kit before I paint. This usually reduces the amount of chipping when I remove the mask and allows the paint to grip on the kit. The primer that I almost always use is Tamiya's fine primer. Besides the primer, Tamiya also has a nice line of masking tape that works like a charm and rarely chips the paint when it's removed. Another thing that I tend to do is let the primer and paint settle ..usually a couple of hours for the primer and a day for the actual paint job. Hope that this helps!

Cheers,

Hermann

p.s. I almost forgot to include that I tend to seal the coat of paint with Future.

Must be the primer. Other than that I do the same thing as you on everything else. Even the Tamiya tape peels the MM acrylic off. Next project I'll try the primer as you do. Other than the whole peeling thing, I love MM acrylic especially since they have the German colors available without haveing to mix 3 bottles of Tamiya just to get one shade.

Hermon

Made a bit of progress ...was able to finish painting the upper portion of the aircraft by applying the remainder of the dark gull grey.




The next part will be the lower part of the aircraft. That will require the use of ModelMaster's flat gull grey. Will report when that is done. Till then, thanks for watching!

Cheers,

Hermann

Looks very nice Hermann! .. should be finished soon!

all the best

Steffen

Thank you Steffen. I would have finished much quicker but finding time to dedicate to the hobby is much harder then before. I'm adjusting to the constant needs of my new baby girl and my work schedule. Until next time, thanks for watching.

I've finally added the last of the decals. I had a bit of an issue with an odd reaction with the decal's glue and micro sol/set where it discolored the paint beneath the translucent film. I had to remove the decal and repaint the affected section. Below are pix displaying the progress of the build:









Next on the agenda will be another coat of Future to seal the decals and attaching the side door. I'll then will apply the weathering wash followed by a coat of matte finish. Thanks for watching!

Cheers,

Hermann

Very nice, Hermann!!

Need to build Adolf's machine too .. one day

cheers

Steffen

sorry kopper havent checked in lately because i was trying to get my F4U finished.
WOW good work it came along nicely.
And im from winter haven FL.

And You?


Build on,
Justin

Hi Hermann,
NIce build, very cool.
A question? in your photos showing the pre shading are these all done with an airbrush or have you tried another technique?

The look almost as if they were done with a pen.

Chris

Thank you Steffen, Chris and Justin (I'm from Miami...originally from Costa Rica). I'm almost finished with the build ..just need a coat of matte and need to attach the canopy and remove the mask. Below are pix of the results of the wash:














Cheers,

Hermann

Nice Job

The wash made the details stand out alot more


Build on,
Justin