@Joel: Yes I actually found a colour photo of a SM.81 on the Russian front and it had a splotch camo job! I've started with the green and I'll move onto the brown next.

@Matt: Nice to see you here Matt. Yes the Italian camouflage paint jobs are some of the most colourful and hardest to achieve. It's not like anyone will will produce this bird in 1/48th now is there? Is there????

Anyway I've made a start and it may be a mite to busy in places but I'll just keep plodding away at it.

Chris,
What an outstanding start to your paint job. I'm sure that's about how they actually did them.
Joel

Cheers Chris ,

You got a steady hand! Very fine lines on Your bird! Which pressure did You use to spray it?

Oliver

Thanks Joel I appreciate your confidence in my abilities! It has been a learning curve that's for sure.

Oliver thanks it was an interesting effort. As to spraying pressure it was around 7 or 8 psi and the paint was quite thin as per Joel's recommendations. Anything more then that and it spidered quite badly. But the control valve on my compressor (a 30ltr tank home handyman type not one specifically for an airbrush) isn't really capable of very fine adjustments so it took some trial and error to get the pressure set.

Okay folks watch this space brown to come. Just squiggles here and there not a solid pattern like the green, just a counterpoint to break up the pattern I guess.

The brown is a very close match for the base colour and almost disappears against it. But it works with the green quite well what do you all think?

Hi Chris,
I fear that once you weather and clearcoat, your second brown will disappear against the base color. I was expecting the color to be closer to chocolate brown. On my screen, your newest color looks like caramel.

Gary

Hi Gary it's a very good match for the FS number that's quoted for the colour and from what I could tell from the other colour schemes the two colours are very close with the second being more of a milk chocolate shade. It may disappear but I'll take that chance and see where it goes.

Chris,
I'm really impressed with the overall look of that camo scheme.

If your regulator doesn't have the minute adjustments needed, you can either change the regulator, or just add the 2nd one to it, which is the preferred way to go, as the open pressure from the tank could be more then the gauge can handle.

Joel

Thanks Joel I appreciate the vote of confidence. Yes I had thought of doing that Joel but it's an expense that will have to wait for now.

Chris,
An excellent rendition of a difficult subject, both as the model (based on the old super model kit), and the original aircraft (anything with an Italian camo scheme). In looking at your progress shots I noticed it looked to me like your top/underside paint schemes seemed to meet in the middle of the wing leading edge. That got me to thinking that I remembered reading someplace that on Italian aircraft the top scheme was carried over the leading edge. I then got motivated enough to go down to the dungeon and dig through the tomes of ancient knowledge and came up with these shots:



Trying to get a good shot of the underside of an aircraft is something of a challenge.



Apparently an SM79 trying to mate with a Ju88 (a JM84?)



There does seem to be quite a bit of variance on how much overlap the top scheme was wrapped over the leading edge, but in almost every instance the top was carried over the leading edges. This whole topic is added just as an aside for general consumption and info, and is certainly not finding any fault with what is an excellent build of a difficult subject. And as a final note, credit where credit is due:



I'm surely looking forward to the next step.
Carry on.

Thanks for the info Thearmorer, I'm aware of the wrap around but the information provided with the kit doesn't call for it. I also must admit that I have little in the way of reference material where this particular aircraft is concerned. In this particular instance I'll trust that Italeri have got it correct. There is little in the way of information on the Web regarding this particular scheme so who's to say that Italeri got it wrong?

And your information is very welcome in any of my builds. The open sharing of information and the discussion that ensues is always enjoyable. And there have been many times when an error has been missed by the modeller but has been seen by one of his fellows. Case in point being the HobbyBoss Bv141 I wasn't even aware that the propeller was wrong, HobbyBoss had it spinning the wrong way!

Welllllll here's an update for you! After careful consideration of the comments that the secondary camo colour was to light I went to the LHS and had a look at various other manufacturers paint for the same FS number. I found Vallejo's to be quite a bit darker and more of a contrast to the base so I got myself a bottle and proceeded to paint over the first attempt. Here are the results, comments gentlemen? Better? Worse? I've also got the yellow theater bands on under the wings and the engines installed.

Looks great, Chris!
Glad to see the engines on. The last brown you added shows up better in the distance shots. It's a nice loking color scheme. On these between the wars designed bombers they really used a lot of wing area to compensate for a lack of horsepower.

Gary

Chris,
Like Gary said, the darker brown really does standout. Looks fantastic.

Joel

Hi Chris

Awesome camo job!

The darker brown really works well.

Regards,
Kobus

Hi Chris are you from Holland and did you buy some cake? What a camo

gr TC

@Gary: Thanks buddy! It's all thanks to you Gary, I was going to leave it as is, but your comments got the old thought processes going and I knew I had to find something more of a contrast. Yeah and particularly Italian aircraft as their engines were always very under powered. But it makes for a great subject though.

@Kobus: My thanks Kobus, great to see you here in amongst my build log. And welcome to Aeroscale we're a great and diverse bunch but as Joel stated in his build log, more like a family.

@Joel: Thanks Joel, I was of two minds but it really did turn out very well. I hope to get it to the Joel Willstein level of excellence in the near future. (LOL I promise to stop referring to your work as the Joel Willstein level of excellence ... at some point)

@Lars: LOL pardon? You'll have to explain the reference to me Lars. And thanks for the kind comment.

[quote]@
....
@Joel: Thanks Joel, I was of two minds but it really did turn out very well. I hope to get it to the Joel Willstein level of excellence in the near future. (LOL I promise to stop referring to your work as the Joel Willstein level of excellence ... at some point)...

Chris,
I'm flattered, but I'm an average modeler at best.
Joel

Hi Chris,

the camo reminded me of the LSD trip kind of sheme you see on tv lol... Same can happen when you eat space cake, that is cake with weed.

And indeed I mean it as a compliment it really looks cool!

gr TC

You're too kind Lars! My thanks for your keen assessment. It's been a really fun camo scheme aside from the odd frustration. It's turned out pretty well.

Okay gentlefolk here are the decals on with just the serial number to go on. Something Italeri gave me in individual numbers so I could make up my own. No idea from Italeri as to exactly what serial number was applied to this aircraft. Guess I'll have to pluck one out of thin air so to speak.

Chris,
A most impressive decal application. They truly look like they were painted on.
Joel

Thanks Joel they snugged down really nicely. I'm really rather pleased with the result.

Okay managed to get a little time in over the holiday period (not much as the wife and kids have kept me pretty busy). Here's the progress so far, rigged the bracing for the elevators and tail empennage, got the decals on the prop blades and the engine cowls painted.

Everything is coming together quite nicely. the tail rigging really came out quite well.
Joel