I like that, too!

Hummm, joining the dark side are you??

Crossover can be fun and help a modeler expand his knowledges and techniques, and this Les you seem to master quite well.

Have fun!

Thanks Gary and Pedro!

Pedro,
I can't say I am joining the dark side...this is more like a visit, this kit has been in my kit stash for a long time and got tired of looking at the dust collect on top of the box year after year.

The Ki-46 trainer has been given its coat of dull metall, this model will be given the usual Japanese scheme of green over light gray but will have massive paint chipping on it, this will be accomplished by a combination of tape and the salt weathering technique.


The upper surface of the wings and stabilizer of the 1/32 scale K-4 were painted RLM 75 and then using a much lightened version of RLM 75 highlights were sprayed on as part of the weathering process, since these pictures were taken the base color of RLM 75 was lightly sprayed over the highlights to tone them down.



...and some dry brushing using dark yellow paint was done on the Panther to represent the brown and green paint being worn off in the high traffic areas.



Matrixone

The 1/32 scale Bf 109K-4 now has all its camouflage paint on the wings upper surfaces and stabilizer.
After the paint is fully dry I will paint the fuselage camouflage and the green JG 27 RVD band.


Matrixone

Excellent modelling, its good to build the kits from the bottom of the stash.

Thank you Bernd!

I just did quite a bit of painting on the Bf 109K-4 and should have some new in-progress pictures Tuesday.

Just yesterday I started a Tamiya Me 262, I can't do too much on it now until I have more room on the worktable. The Panther has been fun to work on but since I don't build armor models its been slow in coming together.

Matrixone

More in-progress pictures...

The Dinah trainer is getting some bits and pieces of Tamiya tape placed on the airframe in random areas and when I am finished with this damp salt will be placed on the edges of some of the tape and a light blotchy coat of green paint will be sprayed on.


The 1/32 scale Bf 109K-4 has its camouflage paint on it as well as the green JG 27 RVD band.

I know it looks wrong but the narrow RVD band is correct for the aircraft I am modeling, for unknown reasons a few JG 27 109's wore this narrow style of RVD band.


The propeller/spinner has been assembled and given some of its weathering.


Some weathering was done on the wing root and was done in a similar way that I am using on the Dinah trainer.


Matrixone

Here is the Dinah trainer after the green paint was sprayed over the tape and damp salt.
The paint chipping effect turned out great and I consider the technique a success but there was just too much metal showing for my taste and instead of looking like a heavily used Japanese warplane it looked more like a 50 year old war relic rotting in the jungle.


To remedy the problem I put on a little more damp salt and sprayed on more green paint and here is the result.

The paint was not fully dry when I removed the salt for the above picture so there are still some grains of salt to be scraped off. Below are the stabilizers with much of the salt clumps still on them. When the paint dries for a few more hours I will remove the salt, usually the salt comes off super easy after the paint is 100% dry.


Matrixone

Hi Les,
You're miles ahead of me on the salt technique. I agree with you, the first one looked like something that sat in the jungle for 20 years. One of the best pieces of advice I ever got regarding weathering aircraft is: 'Less is more'.

Stopping 'just before' your vision of the completed project is difficult. But it is better than showing a model that looks like the ground crew lovingly washed it with SOS pads.

Gaz

Thanks again Gary!

The salt weathering technique is so easy to do I am amazed that others don't use it when adding paint chipping to their late war Japanese aircraft models.
I much prefer to keep the level of weathering on my models close to scale which means they often look under weathered compared to what you see on most other models and just to be different I wanted this Dinah trainer to have extreme weathering effects on it. The paint chipping is wild looking but I have seen photographs of Japanese aircraft taken shortly after the war ended that also had a lot of paint missing on them but none of them were Dinah's and were army single engine fighters so that makes my model more of a what-if.

Some in-progress pictures of this current group of models.







Matrixone

Les,
All of them are looking great! The close-ups of the 109 show some impressive detailing as well as decal work.

Gaz

Thanks Gary!

The little Dinah trainer is set aside while I do some weathering with oil paints on a couple other models.

This Bf 109K-4 will get extreme weathering done to it, as you can tell from the camouflage scheme this was an early production K-4 and this aircraft survived nearly to the end of the war which means it had a long service life and at the time it was photographed it was in bad shape with some of the most extreme exhaust stains on the fuselage sides I have seen on a 109. The oil leaks and stains you see here are not quite the end of the work with oils, more will be done later on.



The Panther also is getting work on it with oil paints.




Matrixone

Hi Les,

Awesome work!! I really enjoy your updates as I learn more every time I read them.

Your weathering techniques are especially useful. Love the work you're doing on the 109 and the Panther.

Looking forward to the next update.

Regards,
Kobus

Thanks for following along Kobus! I appreciate the feedback.

A few more in-progress pictures of the Bf 109K-4.
The work with oil paints is nearly finished, after that the rest of the weathering will be done with enamel paints.





Matrixone

Hi Les

That's looking awesome as usual!

All the best

Rowan

Les,
I'm really quite impressed with your weathering to date on the 1/32 ME 109 K-4, Looking forward to seeing the weathering phase finished, and a picture update.
Joel

Les, that's awesome! I wish I could match your skill on weathering.

Cheers!
Gabriel

Thanks very much for the comments!

I wanted to let the oil paints dry for a while longer so no updates on the K-4 but there was some picture worthy work done on the Panther. My goal is to get this model off my worktable soon, the sooner the better.





Matrixone

Earlier today the topside of the Bf 109K-4 was given some weathering with oil paints, I could not move the model outside to get pictures of it for fear of damaging the oil paints so no pictures today:(

But I did get pictures of the work I did on the Panther road wheels, they are all painted now and given their weathering. The middle road wheels usually had the paint wear off near the rims so I mixed up some metall and hand painted them.
Also more weathering with oil paints has been done on the hull but its so subtle it may be missed.



The tracks for the Panther are being painted now, they should have the last of the paint on them by Thursday.

Matrixone

Looks great, Les!

Les,
For a wingy thing builder, you sure can weather a German Panther with the same restrained finesse as your aircraft models.

My only suggestion would be a little more weathering and some rust on the exhausts.

Joel

Thanks Gary and Joel!

Joel,
While I had the airbrush out during painting of the tracks of the Panther I did airbrush on some rust on the exhausts. I want the Panther to look like it had been in use out in the field but not totally trashed and rusted out but I did add some tiny rust marks anyway, its not often I get add rust to a model since I build aircraft models so this model was going to get some rust if it needs it or not.

The tracks for the Panther were painted and have to dry so I switched back to the Bf 109K-4.
After looking at the photographs of the full size ''white 10'' I noticed what looked like rain marks were present in the exhaust stains on the fuselage sides. The exhaust stains were very sooty and rain could have washed some of soot down towards the lower fuselage creating the streaks and I wanted to replicate that feature on my model. At first I was going to use a narrow paint brush dampened with thinner to add those streaks on the painted exhaust stains but I decided against it...there was too great a chance for it to go wrong if even a little too much thinner was left in the paint brush so I came up with a different plan, I used black oil paint to paint on some narrow vertical lines on the fuselage sides where the exhaust stains were going to be painted, when I airbrush the exhaust stains I will leave just a hint of the black lines showing through hopefully replicating those rain marks.

Here is what the model looks like now...







I also used the black oil paint to dirty up the rear of the lower engine cowl to give it a well used appearance, I will use the airbrush to further blend in the oil paint.




Matrixone

Hi Les,

I really like the way you blended the exhaust stains along the fuselage and under the engine cowl. It is nice and restrained - achieving the look you're looking for - used but not abused.

Excellent work sir! Thank you for sharing.

Regards,
Kobus

Thank you Kobus!
Since the last in-progress pictures were taken the exhaust stains have been airbrushed on...the model looks really used and abused now! I hope to get some pictures of it posted in a day or two.
The Panther has the road wheels and tracks on it now, its getting very close to being finished.


Matrixone

Hi Les,
I really like the sooty streaks on the 109. It really adds another dimension to the model. I fear I may have to borrow this technique from you.

Gaz