Howdy folks!!

I got started on my kit at last. Here's what I've completed so far. More detail photos are available at my Gallery link


Constructive feedback welcome... !!

Cheers, BP

Looking good so far BP. It might be a good idea to do a bit of drybrushing on the black radio equipment behind the pilot's seat to make the detail stand out a bit more? Neat painting on the cockpit dials, I wish I had a steady enough hand to paint that neatly.

I would also say that drybrushing the wheel wheel with some black and brown (oil, dirt) and maybe some silver for chipped paint. Great start.

Hi folks,

thanks for the feedback so far.

Martin, yes, I took your advice and d/b'd the areas behind the seat. It came out quite well. But sadly, it won't be visible, even thru the side windows!

And Jeff, yep, am planning to dirty up the wheels with a wash near the end...

BTW, I have finished the painting of the a/c yesterday. Will put up some pics tonite. Will be giving it a coat of Future for the washes too. Am not very sure if I need to paint the invasion stripes area, so that the decals will not show the underlying paint.

AFAIK, Academy decals are quite thin, and tend to show the under-areas all to well. Otherwise, I'm planning to lay down a strip of white decal below first, and then lay on the kit decals on top. Let's see!

At this rate, I thik I should have my kit finished by the middle of next week. However, the rains have come down pretty early and heavily this year in South India. So it may take some time to dry out..

Cheers,
BP.

Well, as promised, here are some piccies of my progress. As you can see, quite a lot of decaling has been finished !!


Two more pics are available at my . Gallery link

More laterz. Am going out of station for the next two days. Will complete the decaling by Monday I guess !!

Cheers,
BP.

You have really made good progress there BP. Looks excellent. Did you put a strip of white decal down before the invasion stripes as you were thinking of doing? I've always avoided doing aircraft with invasion stripes, I'm not good enough to paint them and large decals don't seem to like me, they always wrinkle up on me when I use decal solutions. Yours look perfect.

Hi there BP

Nice job! Rains or not, you're way ahead of me!

Check in with Dave - he's keeping a tally of who's still in the Overlord build.

All the best

Rowan

Thank you, thank you !



Nope, I didn't.. I thought I'd take a chance, since it would mean using up some of my precious white decal paper(it's pretty expensive to get this stuff imported here ). But the Academy decals are fantastic... The invasion stripes are simply superb.. not a bit of the ground olive drab paint to be seen!
But I do have a gripe against the damned USAF star decals on the sheet . They turned out to be translucent, and so are showing the black strip behind. Oh well, looks like I'll have to have a go at my white decal paper to cover this gaffe up...:-)!



It's not that tough. There's an excellent tut on IPMS Stockholm on how to paint inv stripes on a plane. I tried this out on a dummy kit, and it came out quite well. Try it out if you like:
http://www.ipmsstockholm.org/magazine/1999/09/stuff_eng_tech_stripes.htm
I used a basecoat of Future before I started off on the decal, only on the decal areas. Afterwards, even the decal was given a drag thru a small puddle of Future while still on the backing sheet. This ensured the absolute settling down of the decal, and so it became my slave ;-)! And I don't use decal settling solutions either, altho I'm looking at the use of diluted vinegar in the future. That's for another day!!

Cheers,
BP.

Looking nice, cheers