After the last-minute help with the fuel tank I got this one finished last night. So here also is Special Hobby's Albatros CIII, started way back in March or something. Did my best to get a slightly see-through look on the wings, aided by the old decal on the bottom of the top wing and paint over it trick. The kit is good but I thinned down the trailing edges considerably (including the centre-section cut-out, not sure this is correct!) and had to scratch the centre-line fuel tank on the top wing as the kit doesn't have one. Never mind, a bomb from a Roden DH4 came in handy. It probably doesn't bear much resemblance to any of the real possibilities but it will do for me.

Hope you enjoy!

Now that's nice. I think you really pulled off the translucent look really wel. The crosses under the upper wing is a fantastic touch.

Thanks Marc, I got the under-wing decal trick from somewhere online, quite probably here! At some point I'll have another go at translucency, there's a Fokker E III and a Vickers Gunbus in the stash.

David , you did a wonderful job on your build !

Nicely done! Thank you sincerely for sharing this.

Excellent, David. 1/48th?

David,
Very very nice all round. I am particularly impressed by your transparency results. The bottoms of the wings appear to have some texturing in a few of the photos; the color effect comes off as a clear doped fabric more succesfully then I've seen prior to this build. Can you tell us more on the details?
In the interim, congratulations on a beautiful model.
Cheers,
Lance

Hi Lance,

thanks for your comments. The effect was achieved somewhat serendipitously but I'll try to explain! First off I'm using brushes which is a definite advantage here.
1. put a white coat over the whole wing surface (not necessarily perfectly opaque)
2. put on rib patterns and decals of crosses (or roundels of course!). I actually did this free-hand but next time I think masking will have to be done. Once it's painted I blurred the edges of ribs and crosses a bit with some pastel dust
3.Mix together a gloss coat with various yellows/browns and brush on leaving a bit a of a streaky effect, probably need a couple of coats
4.Mix together a gloss coat with a little white and thin quite a bit. Brush this on by placing a small amount of paint on the surface, spreading it out over the whole wing and then brushing vigorously first across the length of the wing, then across the chord. Repeat until paint has dried and won't move anymore. I put on two of these coats. They give a good translucent kind of woven effect.
5. I then added a coat the same as above but with yellow instead of white in the thinned gloss paint. Gives a bit of a glow.

It's quicker to do than it is to describe! The top wing was done quite by accident to rescue a too brown-yellow coat over the decals etc. Of course when I tried to mimic the effect on the bottom wing it wasn't quite as effective in my opinion. Murphy's law. Hope that helps and thanks again!
David