Hi Dominic I'm liking your work! You're doing very well for your second aircraft! Your modelling skills work the same for either armour or aircraft the only thing you lack is knowledge of your subject and the aftermarket goodies that are available for it. But you're learning about that very quickly by virtue of the wealth of knowledge your fellow modelers provide. Great work keep it up!

Thank you for the encouragement, I'm definitely learning a lot. Got my next couple projects lined up already, can't wait to finish this bird and get to them!!

In the meanwhile, I've made some very slow progress, haven't had much free time lately for some reason. All I've done is get the S.B.S. Models resin props and spinners together. The instructions say to paint the props RLM 70, but it looks odd, I'm used to black props, oh well I'll get used to it. The other thing is that the spinners should be all yellow, but I thought they'd look nice with only the tips yellow. Don't think I like it, I may go back and do them all yellow before I glue them on. Any opinions?



Here you can see the slightly different shape of the kit spinner versus the resin one. I think the resin one is more pleasing to the eye, aside from the assumed greater accuracy.


Here is a close up shot showing the difference between the kit blades and the resin blades. Quite a difference, I definitely like the more robust look of the resin blades.

So I was staring at my model and I concluded that major construction is finished. All I have left is the pitot tube and an antennae or two, but those will wait till the end. I stripped the paint off the two spinners and will repaint them both over-all yellow.
Now I need to decide how to attack the finishing process. I've decided to go at it like a tank. First, a coat of Future, next comes decals. After decals, I may spray a diluted brown black along panel lines and edges. Next will be a black wash for the panel lines. I may throw down a semi-gloss coat to seal everything in. Final step will be flat coat of thinned buff for dust and general fading to tone down the decals and blend the camo together. After that will be exhaust stains and whatever little oil spills and paint chips I decide on.
Hopefully the contrast of semi-gloss with flat accent paints will be perceptible. Anyone have any opinions?

Dom,
The RLM 70 for the prop blades is correct for the Luftwaffe. The common name is Green-Black and that is exactly what it is. I admit it does look a bit off at first, but you get used to it. Go with the all yellow spinners, again it is correct that way and I think it adds to the visual interest. Wide cord or narrow cord prop blades is dependent on which mark He 111 you are doing. (always check your references! )
As for the finish, like armor, these things where beat to crap in the field. Unlike armor, they where washed and spot-painted constantly So any finish (as long as it is dull ) should be fine. Semi with flat weathering sounds fine to me. Besides if it looks to shinny you can always dull it down some more with Testors flat coat
Anyway, the plane looks great so far....much luck on the rest of it

Later

Yes, I agree about the spinners. In fact right after my last post I stripped the paint off with the intention of spraying them yellow, still haven't gotten to it.
I'm worried about the props though, I'm doing this kit with zero references, so I have no idea if the wide props are correct, but at least they look neat. Well, ignorance is bliss!

Time to put some markings on this girl. After what I thought was a Future tragedy, I took some advice and thinned it down a bit, amped up the "psi" and sprayed through a smaller tip. I don't know if I would call the surface glassy, but at least it's not ruined. There are still some areas that feel pebbly, but I made sure to brush paint those spots with Future before putting any decals.

Now that the Future is finished, it's time to take the plunge and start marking her. One thing I noticed is that the kit decals, by Cartograph, are actually really nice, especially compared to the aftermarket set I got by Superscale. The kit decals are spot on with their registry, where the Superscale decals are off, as shows on a couple of their smaller pieces.

I also noticed that the kit decals for the "no step" markings are in white, while the Superscale decals are in black. Also, the respective directions have differing locations for their data markings.

Well, with no research, I decided to mix and match and use what I thought were the more logical locations. I ended up using the kit national crosses and swazis. I had a bad experience with the Superscale cross on the bottom wing, it was shattered, it wrinkled horribly, and then tore when I tried embossing it into the panel lines. I used plenty of micro-set and micro-sol, but it was just too fragile. The kit decals seem a bit thicker, and so I feel they have more structural integrity. It takes a bit more micro-sol and elbow grease to get them in into the panel lines, but I don't mind.

By the way, tragedy struck as I was handling the model while decaling; I managed to snap off the beautiful resin barrel of the belly machine gun that I had worked my tail off trying to get together.

I guess I'm doing what is called a "shameless bump." After not posting to this blog for a bit, I feel like I need to add a couple replies and get it back to the front page. Well here goes, some pics of my decaling work in progress. Some of these will illustrate the issues I referred to above.

Here I used the Superscale unit badge and No Steps on the wing roots along with the Cartograph data marks.

These are all Superscale markings. I had a hard time deciding on white stenciling or black, I ended up going with black as I assumed an aftermarket company would have been more thorough with their research.

The radio call sign markings going on. I think I did a reasonably decent job of matching the yellow on the fuselage band to the yellow of the decal. Next step after sealing will be a mist of thinned deck tan to blend everything together.

Here is a pic of the Superscale wing cross. You can sort of see the blemishes, these are paint spots where I had to cover up tears and cracks. Slightly less noticable in the pic are the wrinkles and folds that I could not flatten out. The bottom corner is broken from where I softened the decal with micro-set and then tried scrubbing it off to replace it. No such luck, after all those applications of micro-sol, that thing is on there. Oh well, I call it battle damage. (thats the afv modeller in me!)

This here is just a dang pretty picture. I wanted to take a glory shot of the marking on the side of the oil cooler intake, but it shows off the landing gear very nicely. I'm including it, enjoy!

This final shot is of the data markings on the bottom of the fuselage. These are from the Superscale sheet and the kit does not have corresponding decals. So that makes it worth having bought the aftermarket sheet, I enjoy busying up a kit with markings.

Keep up the great work, shes coming along nicely

Well, it has been quite some time since i've done any work on this bird. Since last we met, i finished applying the decals, and thats about it. She's sat in standby status while i got addicted to World of Tanks. Finally today i decided to work up the courage to start the next phase of my planned process. I mixed up some thinned dark grey and began spraying along panel lines. I'm hoping to get a used, dirty look from this. It's pretty harsh looking right now, but i expect that after oil washes and a light overcoat of a dust color, it will blend in.

Here is a closer look at the wing. The poor lighting plus my inability to figure out the best camera settings end up effecting the look of the photo. Whether it makes it look better or worse, i'm not sure.

Two more shots. In these angles there's less glare on the top coat of future, and then flat gray stands out more along the panel lines. The grey will get a coat of future to protect it before the oil washes on the panel lines.

A final look, really showing the grey. Pretty drastic looking, i'll make the excuse that it's the camera and not my heavy-handed airbrush work.

By the way, i only got as far as the wings before my wife came home and life got in the way of my hobby again. Next chance i get i'll take care of the rest.

Finally finished spraying the grey on the panel lines. I definitely need to improve my technique. I find that I am not too good at spraying straight lines. Oh well, It's blending in nicely.
I've decided to pick out the panel lines using a light color instead of black. My hope is that this will give it a dirtier look. Next time maybe I'll make sure to spray a much lighter camo job so a black wash on the panel lines will show up more.
So now, on to the photos.

Now the result. Prior to the wash I apply a couple coats of Future to seal in the grey along the panel lines. I used Windsor and Newton oil paints, mixing some Naples Yellow Hue with a touch of Raw Umber to give a nasty, dirty color. I used a little cotton ball and lightly wiped perpendicular to the panel line. I didn't need to use any thinner, since the coat of Future floor polish helped the paint wipe away. I suppose using thinner would have given a cleaner look, but I was going for a dirty finish so I don't mind.

After this pic was taken I went in and did a few touch ups. The national cross needed some attention, I ran the back edge of an X-acto blade along the panel line to make enough of a trough for the wash to sit in. It worked relatively well.

Looking great! Can't wait to see it finished.

Yep, decals can sometimes need some extra TLC to make them conform to panel lines. Definitely worth the trouble though, as decals hanging over recessed detail easily dectracts from otherwise superior work.
I myself often resort to a couple of doses of micro sol combined with either cutting along the panel with a sharp hobby knife or just burnishing down with a toothpick, pin or something similar, depending on the case.

I completely agree. These decals were rather thick, but they all got multiple coats of Micro-Sol, then a tooth pick along the panel lines. Still, some took to it better than others. The radio call sign letters sunk in pretty well, but the crosses on the wings just refused to take the panel line very well. Guess it's gonna be a sharp blade for the other one too.

Lookin' good! I like the dusty look of the panel lines and the overall finish- cheers!

chuk

Thanks Chuck, I'm pretty happy with how it looks too, but that may be the armor modeller in me. I'm not so sure this is an accurate look compared to the prototype. I don't have much experience with aircraft but they seem to be pretty black and greasy along panel lines. At least thats what i've noticed looking out the window of a passenger plane. What is that crud? It looks like the bolts and seams gather a lot of oily gunk. On this plane, my paint job is dark to the point that i figured a black wash would be lost, thats why i decided to go with a high visibility "dust" wash. Thanks for the compliments, I can't wait to see this thing get finished!

My word, is that a light at the end of the tunnel that I see? I believe so. Late into the night I did some spraying. I misted on a thinned coat of Tamiya Deck Tan, then a little thicker coat along the bottom and sides for a dusty look. Plus I like doing this to knock down the stark white and blacks of the decals.




After that I mixed a strange brew of tamiya colors black, nato brown, and a touch of white, to make what I thought would be a good exhaust color for the stains on the wings. I had read somewhere, and seen a period photo, that indicates these He111's had some pretty heavy exhaust marks. With this in mind, I went heavy on the wings, but I overdid it on the rear stabs. Oh well, the bottom won't be much seen.


As you can see from these pics, several machine gun barrels have snapped off during the painting process. Luckily I still have them, so they will be glued on at the very end along with a few other items I've so far left off.

A couple more shots to highlight the canopy. I think the chance to finally peel the masks off is what forced me to call an end to major painting operations. From here out it will be detail work, but not much of that. I think the old bird looks quite good, although I admit that the fingerprints on the windows are out of scale.

Man, sometimes I hate having a camera with a lot of pixels, it shows up everything! Well, thankfully to the naked eye a lot of the little imperfections are not noticeable.

One thing that is quite obvious is that I have not yet installed the Quickboost exhaust stacks. I'm trying to think of a good way to paint them up. I have a usual technique but I want something better. I really have no imagination when it comes to this, so I'm thinking a base coat of RLM66 grey (I'll paint it along with the bombs and top gunners equipment) then go over top of the grey on the exhausts with the usual artist oils Raw Umber and Burnt Sienna, then finish with various orange shades of pastel. Now, this is fine for exhausts on afv's, but on an airplane? perhaps someone has a better method.

Looking good there Dominic!

Well this bird needs some some bombs slung under her. Here is one of the bombs that I've been working on. At one point I had it pretty filthy looking. I figured maybe it had been stacked outside and got filth on it, but without the plane being set in context it didn't make much sense. So I went real heavy on the MIG Panzer Grey Faded pigments and washes, then a light rub of MIG Gunmetal. I'm not even sure anymore what I was hoping to achieve with the final look, but it looks like... something. Enjoy.