Mike, thanks for the compliment, I just hope I can finish off strong.

Eetu, thanks for the links. I have the Quickboost exhausts for this kit, very nice.

Man, you guys are killing me. On the one hand I kind of don't want to spend more money, on the other I have already spent money to make it look good, so why not finish it off? I think I may take the plunge and get both the Quickboost and the Vector sets.

It works like this: I have the nose gun glued in on the 111 and the nose cone attached, at the same time I have a Do 217 at my office that the cleaning crew managed to break all the cockpit guns off. If I get the Quickboost 3 barrel set, I can clip off the nose gun barrel on the 111 and replace it, and have two barrels left for either side of the 217. At the same time, I can pick up the Vector guns, and use them to replace the other two weapons on the 111, on the enclosed belly position but more importantly on the open ventral position. The 217 isn't much of an issue because I already ordered and received replacement guns from Revell, which was a very nice service. All I know is that those screwy bent Verlinden barrels are going to literally drive me insane.

Hmmmm.... decisions decisions, they are not expensive in themselves, but what about shipping to California? I shall look further into this.

For online shops closer to you, Linden Hill Imports stocks Vector. From that glimpse I took, I didn't see mentions of shipping costs, though. Shouldn't be too much, considering it's located in US and the items are rater small? I think there must be other stores in the States selling Vector stuff too...

On the other hand however, Neomega's shipping rates don't seem that high either, flat rate overseas being £3.50.

Well unfortunately Linden Hill is closed for the holidays at this moment. And for some reason on the Modelchoice.net page i cannot find the He111 barrels in the search on the order form! When i do an open ended search for all Quickboost items, it only lists items up to 48-100! Mine is 48-270 In fact, i did a quick web search for anyone else who carries Quickboost, and the few i found are the same way, they only list the first 100 items, aagh! Where can i pick these up? I didn't see a contact tab on the Modelchoice page.

Aside from whining about guns, I actually got some painting done. I laid down the first color of the camo, then tweaked it but lightening it with some white and even a little straight yellow in the mix, then came back over top with the base coat color to tone it down a bit. I with these pics had come out nicer, but i think everyone will be able to get the idea.

Just two more angles. It's nice to take over an hour to get the perfect shot, not be satisfied with any, then realized that there were two giant greasy toddler finger smears on the lens the whole time.

Due to the bad lighting and my low understanding of this camera, the colors don't come out quite right. There is a definite green left in the scheme. Hopefully the final pics will show it off beter.

Check on ebay, there are a couple guys based in the US who sell tough to find detail items. Im pretty sure I got most of my quickboost stuff there.

Mike, took your advice. I checked ebay last night and found nothing, but after your message i gave it a second try and wouldn't you know it, i found the Quickboost set. Maybe i searched wrong last night, but i snatched it up.

Now i need to wait for Linden Hill to come back from vacation so i can get those Vector guns.

Ok, making some progress. Masked off for the second coat and laid on some color.

And now its time for the grand reveal. The tape has been removed and i can get a better idea of how it looks. One thing i realize is how much the camera picks up. It makes the panel fading look much more garish than in person. I guess i finally understand what is meant by "painting for the camera." My plan is to go back with some of the base color and give a thin spray to the correct areas, both to tone down the rough spots and to tie it all together.

Removing the tape has created some areas where i need some spot touch up work. Nothing too huge, maybe i'll sell it as repaired flak damage. I assume that the repaired spot would need a quick shot of paint to cover it.

YES! It arrived today, a lot sooner than I expected. And a happy bonus, I thought it was only going to have two guns but it comes with four!



Can't wait to put a couple of these babies together and arm up that 111!

A little update. I have not yet painted the undersurfaces of this bird, I decided I wanted to get some feet under her first. So, I sprayed some RLM65 around the gear bays and doors, then started working on the landing gear themselves. My plan is to get the gear on and then paint the rest of the bottom. Why? I don't want to risk breaking off antennae and guns and what not, so I'd rather she can stand on her own two legs without being propped on paint bottles for ever.

Problem is, the kit gear are too plain. I looked at the Scale Aircraft Conversions gear, but honestly from what I can see they look like metal versions of the kit gear, nothing added or corrected. So I decided to make a brutish effort at adding a little interest to mine.

One thing I noticed is that the real axle is hollow. I can't drill it all the way out, and I don't have hollow tube, so I just implied it by drilling part way through. To give the flat face a little more interest, I used Waldron punch set to bang out a couple rings to put around the hole. These aren't present on the real thing but I wanted to do something to make it more visually interesting. I also added the towing ring; mine is too big but I have my limitations, besides I wanted to be able to see it with the naked eye. Of course there are the brake lines, they came out reasonably well using stretched sprue.


Another piece I added was a hydrolic arm that was missing. I made it from styrene rod with a little tamiya tape wrapped around it. It looks bad now but it'll be better once painted; regardless this piece is hardly visible.


I added some sheet styrene right above the axle boots (yellow circle), or whatever they're called, because on the real thing this is all one piece including the pivot point where the other gear piece attaches to the main struts. I also carved out the plastic on the side of the hinge pieces for the actuator rods (red circle). I have no idea what these pieces are called so I'm just kind of making it up as I go along.

A final pic for good luck. Now I just have to finish off the other side and I can mount it. The biggest pain is the tug ring, we'll see if the second one looks at all like the first. Can't wait to put some paint on them and glue them in!

A good way to make consistent rings is to wind soft wire around a metal mandrel. Drill bits are a good tool to use for this due to their many different diameters. Slide the coil off and cut through. Bingo! Lots of tiny rings all the same size.

Oh yes, that's how I made the first ring. However, I opened it up a bit and superglued it to a piece of styrene, then cemented that to the strut. That way it looked more like a "c" ring and not a full circle, although I don't think at this size you can tell the difference without a magnifying glass.

Dom,
Cockpit details are awesome!

I like the paint sceme, it's nicely done.

Dom,
Nice work on additions to the landing gear.

That's a cool idea I'm going to try it out. Thanks

Ok, two quick shots of the gear now that they've been painted. All I'm planning on doing now is adding some dirt splatter. I figure this gal was probably operating from a dirt field, so the wheels would kick up some dirt on the gear and bottom of the wing.
If anyone sees something I missed or something that should be a different color, please let me know! Thanks for looking.

Well, finally worked up the courage and energy to spray the bottom. Instead of masking and doing a hardline demarcation, I decided to give freehand a go. I intended on trying to get a nice tight feather, but at some point I forgot that plan and got sloppy, so it looks too loose in some places. I have to spray the green some more for the prop spinners and ventral gunner position, so I'll use that time to take care of any overspray.

Hmm, here's a nice pic, shows what happens when you get too eager to paint and don't plan ahead for the theatre stripse! so now I have to spray the fueslage band and the wingtips in yellow, this may difinitely call for some retouching.

here is another quick pic showing the landing gear in. Sorry it came out so dark, but you can kind of see that I attacked the wells with Mig pigments. I think they came out well, just wish i could get it looking a tad nicer.

Alright, I went ahead and mixed up some yellow and sprayed on the theater marks. I definitely see why this is usually done before the main camo is applied. I didn't have any trouble with covering the green or light blue, it's only that masking it this way was a real pain in the booty.

I didn't go by any exact science, just a couple drops of Liquitex retarder, some Tamiya thinner, Tamiya yellow, and a lil dab of Tamiya Hull Red to get closer to that ochre color.

Here is a shot of the under wingtips. I guess its the indoor lighting, but I can't get the tint correct. Anyhow, the greens should look greener, the blue bluer, but the yellow looks fine enough in the photos. The only thing I need to do is paint the spinners yellow. I'll tackle that later, and the yellow mix will obviously be slightly different, but I don't think it'll be obvious. Besides, it'll give the model a little visual interest instead of being all matchy-matchy.