Hi all,

Time to start all over again.

I checked the paint coat and it seemed pretty even to me, without too much damage. So i decided to spray Tamiya fine surface primer straight on it, without sanding. A good inspection of the primed surface showed that it was a bit rough, but I am not sure if this was because of the paint below it or just bad priming.



Today, my Christmas holiday started, which was a good time to start using the airbrush. The approach of painting is similar to the first attempt, as I was quite pleased with the result.

First i made a cow with Tamiya black:


Which I converted to a tiger with Tamiya Nato Brown:


I expected that the Nato Brown was a bit darker, because this is quite light. Well, tomorrow, the blue will be applied and as I am spraying light coats, i hope i can modulate it to my likening .

The yellow tailband was also applied.The last time, i used Tamiya yellow green for it, but i found it a bit greenish, so now i mixed it with Tamiya lemmon yellow in a ratio of 1:2 (1 yellow green, 2 lemmon yellow) and the result is already better.

Tomorrow the blue coat and hopefully it will be as nice as the previous coat.



Jelger

WELL DONE! Are you sure that you're going to paint over that nice camo by the way ?



Magnus

Nicely done! Good to see You back in track. I find it very difficult to turn back on a model after the one or other disaster during building, so I am glad You are busy again. And I am very curious about how will become the blue coat over the tiger mottling.

Oliver

Jelger,

Great recovery. I look forward to the blue.

Thank you all for your comments.

I have spent quite a few euro's on the Eduard Masks, the Preiser Penguins and the decals, but most of all a lot of time, so not finishing this is not an option. But I was about to throw it away when disaster struck.

However, the paint job is not too difficult and with a few hours of work, I am almost there where it stopped the previous time.

This afternoon, I made a whale from the tiger and she is all blue now. I spray pretty thin coats (paint to thinner: 1 to 2) so I can control the painting process pretty well.

Before starting the blue paint, the tailband had to be masked, which somehow was now a bit more difficult. The trick is to get a vertical band but the tail is tapered and there should be a horizontal band of blue straight through it.


The end result of the tailband was that one side is vertical, but the other side is not. However, both sides met each other perfectly at the downside of the tail .

The next step was to paint the blue color. Like the first time, I am happy again with the results. The blue color is now a bit lighter, showing more of the brown and black, which gives more variation.







Right now, I am at the same point, as the first time. It is time for a gloss coat. As the blue if a Tamiya flat, I added Tamiya clear to it in about a 1:2 ratio (1 part clear, 2 parts paint), but still the coat is pretty matte. This time, I was however clever enough to spray the left over paint on my test model, so i can experiment with gloss coats. I have still a very old bottle of Parket Plus (Future) which i can brush on with good results. However, I also read good stories about Alclad Aqua Gloss Klear, an acrylic gloss coat, so I will give this a try on my test model first.



Jelger

More news from the Argentinian S-55.

The past few days, i added the decals and now it really looks like an Argentinian S-55. The decals went on very well.











Next step will be sealing the decals, detail painting and do some weathering.



Jelger

Now we're talking Jelger! It's starting to look really good now!



Magnus

Hi all,

Thanks for your kind words Magnus!

It has been a while since i posted an update, but I didn't sit still previous months.

I have finished all the detail painting, which wasn't much and applied some weathering by means of a few chips with a watercolor pensil and a wash of brown and grey oil paint heavily diluted in white spirit. Then everything was sealed by Vallejo Matt varnish (50%+ 25 % diluent and 25 % flow improver). She is now 99 % done. Only the rotors should be added, which are also painted, but wait for a matt varnish.







I also started with my Antarctic base, which consists of coarse sand fixed in diluted white glue. I darkened the base with diluted dark acrylic paint. I also will add some snow, but a first attempt with Vallejo snow failed miserably. This stuff is no more than thick acrylic paint, which cracked after drying. I now orderd snow from Noch, which is used for (railroad) model landscaping. I hope this will give a better result. When the snow is applied, I will add my Preiser penguins and I am done.





And here a picture of the S-55 on its base.



Thanks for looking!



Jelger

Looks great! Now the masks are off the glass, it is marvelous to see so much of the carefully wrought interior details.

I like it a lot and I'm glad that you manage to save the model from the paint disaster! Looking forward to meet the penguins!



Magnus

Hi Jelger,

Looking very good Sir!

Regards,
Kobus

Thank to you all for your compliments.

I have finished the S-55, but I am waiting for an opportunity to take some decent pictures.

Unfortunately, I encountered some problems with the Noch snow in combination with diluted white glue as some green spots appeared in the snow... I will have to find a solution for that.



Jelger