I had hoped to be a little farther along by now, but the real world has managed to steal a lot of my time over the last few days. I thought I would have more time when I retired, but it isn't working that way.
Before I start painting, I like to think about how I want the plane to look and then create a plan to achieve it. The plan for this plane was easy to imagine but hard to actually achieve. I really like the online photos I found of the plane late in its Honduran career. These planes had been used hard and were either near, or at retirement. Their camo was very faded. For this model, I wanted to depict a plane late in its career, but not retired. There would be money to keep the planes safe and flyable, but not a lot of time or money was available for appearance. So, I would be trying to create a camouflage that wasn't new and wasn't as bad in my photos, but something in between. So, informed imagination.
These planes had a lot of chipping and areas where paint had worn off. I started the painting by spraying Vallejo Metals Duraluminum on all of the leading edges and the front of the intake. I also sprayed Vallejo Dark Aluminum on the gun panels. When that was dry, I brushed AK Worn Effects fluid over all the metal areas. The instructions say to spray the paint layer over the fluid as soon as it is dry, then start the chipping process as soon as the top paint layer is dry. I wouldn't be at the chipping process for a couple of days, so I hoped it would still work.
I started the camo with a base color of light tan, followed by a reddish tan Model Air color. I wanted to try a new masking method for the rest of the camo. My wife uses a removable glue that allows you to glue two pieces of paper together and then later pull them apart. This glue comes in a stick just like school glues. I wondered if I could use this glue to attach a paper mask to the model and then remove the mask after painting. I enlarged the camo diagram that came with the decals to 1/72 and then cut out each camo pattern using an Exacto. The glue worked perfectly. It held the mask in position during painting and removed easily without leaving any residue. Really cool stuff. Basically it seems like the same glue on Post-It Notes.
This was a great plan, but I managed to mess it up. At some point during the painting, I lost track of which color I was masking and which color I was painting. So, when I removed all of the masks I had a great-looking camo that had colors in the wrong places. So, I spent a day fixing where the colors were. This time I painted the new camo by hand. I then used slightly lighter and slightly darker camo colors to create some contrast.
It was now time to see if I could get worn effects. I spread water on all of the places where I had painted the Worn Effects, waited a minute or two, then used a stiff brush to rub the paint. It wasn't long before the metal areas started appearing like magic. At this point I noticed that some of the Vallejo Model Air I used for contrast colors was starting to rub off. It didn't come off easily, so I thought I could create some cool effects by using water and a stiff brush on the Vallejo. I really liked the effect, so I continued on various places on the wings and fuselage. Of course, I took things too far on the left wing and removed an area of paint down to bare plastic. I had to get creative here because I knew I would never match the existing colors. I decided that my plane had a wing panel replaced that had never been painted to match the plane. I masked the surrounding panels and sprayed the panel with Vallejo Duraluminum and Tamiya Metallic Gray.
When all of this was dry, I used artist oils to create some effect, leaks, fading, and so on. With that, I want to quit while I am ahead. Tomorrow I will spray some clear gloss to get ready for the decals, and then get ready for the end. I am already planning F-86 number 3. Right now, I plan to use the 1/48 Italeri F-86E to model a plane flown by the Puerto Rico Air National Guard. Cheers everyone.
8 attached images. Click to enlarge.
