I'm taking Colin's advice and 'copying' this across from the Aviation page to the DAW forum in pieces...
My first attempt at an article or work in progress on this site, please bear with me! Recently purchased (more like invested) in a Harder-Steenbeck Infinity airbrush and decided to try this out on a new kit build; this Tamiya classic became my first victim! This is OOB, no frills; the only thing additional is the paint mask by Eduard.
Cockpit is relatively basic, but fit is firm, tight, and the detail is sufficient for OOB. Tamiya provides decals for the crew station instruments, which I struggled to get on as they basically fell apart on me during application. Once the cockpit was finished the rest of the kit went together rather rapidly due to really good, crisp sprues, virtually no flash, and good engineering design of the moulds. I take my time with such things, so while it took me several weeks to do, in reality probably a few hours’ time in total; airframe assembly to the final shape in Picture 2 probably took about two hours.
The rockets, wheels, engines, landing gear, props, antennas and wheel well doors I did separately as they’ll go on later towards the end.
Once assembled, I primered the airframe and touched up with putty and reprimered again, then began the undershading or filtering for the final camouflage coats. First on was a deep red-brown on fabric-covered control surfaces (or what I assumed were anyway), and then a dusting of Pale Brown – I put a heavier application of pale brown on the engine strutures in the wings to offer a subtle difference for engine fluid stain, metal, etc. then added a filter of camouflage gray across the top of the wings and fuselage to simulate sun fading in the mediterranean climate before tracing the panel lines. This is pretty tedious as I tend to hit EVERY panel line! Here is where I acquainted myself with my new toy – an Infinity CR+ with a 0.2mm needle… Flat black thinned out at about a 1:2 or 1:2.5 ratio (very thin for me) and I used the trigger stop feature and was truly impressed with the results. hinged panels and really grimy areas will get this, but I’m going to chase the rest of the panels elsewhere with a combination of browns. More to come, hopefully today…
I’ve finished undershading all the panel lines on the topside of the airframe today in a cocoa brown that I think will complement the middlestone/dark earth camouflage to come later. About 65% done, next step will be to flip the Beaufighter over and put a filter on the underside (I’m thinking of Oxide Green frankly) before I undershade the panel lines a medium grey ahead of the final coat of Azure Blue.
Update:
7-8 Sep 21 - I've now finished the underside with Gunze-Sangyo Oxide Green inside the panels.
9 Sep 21 - Started shading in the underside panel lines and hatch edges with Gunze-Sangyo Intermediate Blue instead of Medium Grey as I had planned; the Azure Blue is a much brighter colour than I had imagined in real life hence the reason for the change.
11 Sep 21 - Went into town to the local hobby shop (first time in a long while what with the COVID-19 pandemic and all) and was so happy to see they've really expanded out their product lines in paints, tools, finishes, etc. - to include AK Interactive paints - so I treated myself! I invested in some AK paints and thinner that I will now use to camouflage the Beaufighter in. Interestingly, I learned something today I didn't know before: apparently you shouldn't mix the Mr. Hobby Aqueous paints with the Mr. Color thinner - they don't mix well! Well, that explains a few things :-O. Needless to say I had been struggling a bit with the Intermediate Blue the past couple days trying to get it to flow off my airbrush so I decided to mix the Hobby colour with the Aqueous Color and lo and behold that came out so much better! Photos to come shortly. I've added on the completed engine cowls, too. Afterwards I'm going to go back over the Flaps and the engine cowlings post-fit and hit them again with flat black in the Hobby Color thiner.
Next step will be for me to go back over some of the hinged panels (Flaps) before I start the camouflaging properly.
12 Sep 21: [Pic27] Next comes the camouflage. One of the truly great things I love about this kit from the moment I opened the box was the giant, to-scale planform of the Beaufighter’s camouflage patterns! Yay! Harking back to my days as a penniless youth, I wanted a soft edge on my paint, and I had a handy supply of cardstock …
17 Sep 21: [Pic24] I spent the next several days marrying up the various pieces of the camouflage areas in order to get the correct shape around the bends and corners… These all needed to be done before I put the first coat of paint down over the undershading.
20 Sep 21: [Pic23] I taped up my beaufighter, deciding it was best to start from the belly up. As a reward for their sage advice at my local hobby shop, I decided to invest in a few of the AK Interactive paints – live very dangerously and try my hand at them while putting on a finish coat with them. I bout the Azure Blue, Dark Earth, and Middlestone. Along with a supply of AK thinner to accompany. I couldn’t find anywhere a set mix ratio of thinner to paint for the AK line, and all the commentary I was reading on it was as diverse and contradictory as it was confusing, so I chose to go with what I knew: Dave Whalen once said if you can get paint bubbles to ‘roll’ across the surface you’ve got a good mix – so that’s what I did. I always tend to go a little too thin than too thick, so with the Azure Blue it was more like a 1:2.5 mix of paint to thinner. I got the dancing paint bubbles, so tested it out on a scrap piece of cardboard with my H&S and then off to work.
I’ve never shot AK Interactive before, so what happened next both surprised and scared me at the same time. I had a cup full of thinned paint, the large cup, and on the first pass I thought I had gone too heavy! No runs or drips, and it dries SUPER quick, but it ran incredibly fast and really blanketed down on the panel lines so I had to be extra careful – both with the airbrush and the larger needle and the paint mix in the cup. The Blue is sort of flourescent – so in the light it was difficult to tell sometimes if I had a uniform coating much less enough coats to cover while opaque enough to let the oxide green and the intermediate blue come through. I didn’t finish the job before I ran out of paint mix! Where did it all go? Certainly not on my airplane! I had to make a second batch and this time I think it was slightly thinner by a drop or two than before, but I had better control and I could tell how far to go before I was done with an area and ready to move on to another part of the wing. I’m glad I did the oxide green undercoat and the intermediate blue; The panel lines came out decent enough but the interior panel shading helps to give the Azure Blue a ‘patchy’ sort of ‘wet’ look. I don’t think I would’ve been happy with my work otherwise. And these paints dry SUPER hard.
The jury is still out for me on the AK Interactive range of paints after my first experience. I’m a little worried I won’t have enough ‘room’ shading-wise or coat-wise to be able to pull out the dark panels from underneath both a coat of Middlestone AND a coat of Dark Earth on top of that, knowing what I know now, but hey, that’s part of the fun, isn’t it?
28 Sep 21:[Pic 28] I spent an evening early last week taping up the easiest parts of the Beaufighter to paint Dark Earth. I've decided to do the camouflage in two, maybe three stages: the easiest bits first (wings and elevators) then the more difficult ones (fuselage), and finally the rudder last. I'm a bit paranoid about overspray, as you can probably see here. And yet, I still experience it [Pics 31-33] although from a distance it does look nice 🙂 - seriously though, I think I overdid it a little on the Dark Earth. Tomorrow I think I'll make a start tacking down the two fuselage patterns, then paint them up, before finishing off the topside with the rudder patches. Flip it back over and tape-off to touch-up the underside to clean up the overspray.
33 attached images. Click to enlarge.
