Here is work so far on the new Wingsy Bf-109E-3.

The main piece of news is, this model is completely painted with Mission Models Paints. The LHS got a full set-up last week, and I decided to get some since it's a way to support the local team (MMP is made in "beautiful downtown Burbank" - about 10 miles from Le Chateau du Chat).

This paint is incredible. The model is done with paint poured straight from the bottles. Airbrushing thickness to start with! And you can brush-paint without getting streaks and the color will match the paint airbrushed. The paint is water-based, so it is easy to clean up, no stink, etc.

I did the 02 over 65 fuselage sides with the paint unthinned. I could tighten down to get a thin thin thin coat, which you can "see through" to the 65 beneath - like you're supposed to!

MMP has a full Luftwaffe range, RAF range, USAAF range, USN range, plus other colors.

It's easier to use than any other - doesn't dry in the airbrush tip like Xtracrylix, easier to control than Vallejo (and the colors are more easily identified). It's color-accurate, up there with Xtracrylix (the go-to standard for color accuracy for me.

Seriously - bye-bye Tamiya, Xtracrylix, Vallejo (except for the metallics) for camo colors, and hello Mission Models Paints! This is the best paint I have ever found.

The paint dries (inside 30 minutes) flat with a slight sheen. It's very thin and fragile, so I put on a coat of clear gloss to protect it ASAP.

BTW - I compared this Wingsy kit - which the experten have declared is "fully accurate" - with the Eduard 109E. Guess what? The Eduard 109E is "off" in measurement and size and such, by about the same amounts as the first-release 109G-6 everyone declared an existential disaster. The wings are too long in span, the rear fuselage too long, cockpit and canopy too long. I'm talking a scale 6-8 inches in each of these areas (4 inches in the cockpit), which is enough to be noticeable in 1/48. And yet, the prop, the ailerons, the rudder and the elevators are all the same size as this kit (i.e, "correct"). And nobody has ever declared that kit an "existential disaster."

6 attached images. Click to enlarge.

@johnb - The control surfaces are all separate. The one thing I did that most don't, which I was only recently reminded of, was to give a slight "droop" to both ailerons - they do that when the flaps are down. When you droop the elevators, always remember to push the stick forward in the cockpit.

Tom, I don’t suppose there’s much difference between that newer E-3 versus the previous box for the E-1, besides the wing cannons right?
Also funny how symmetricaly different was my first and only experience with those paints. Shows how products are really perceived as good or bad based on how we use them. I must have added a 40 or 50 ratio of dilution where you mention using it straight from the bottle and getting thin lines, go figure! I’ll give that O2 bottle another try soon 😉

Tom, most of the reviews and modelling books on the Bf-109-Es that I know of mention the Eduard size discrepancies. One difference is that we've long had decent 1/48 E kits from Tamiya and Hasegawa (after both of them messed up the nose shape in their first goes), but we were long without a good F (the old Airfix kit being the only worthy contender) or G (Arii being the best of a poor lot). The disappointment in Eduard's first effort was immense. Whether that was justified is a matter of opinion, I think. I got one of those early kits, as I had a lot of the Arii kits before it.

My experience with MMP was more like Pedro's. I never could get the pink gunk in the bottom of the bottle to mix in (I have a jig-saw and clamp mixer, so I can sit there as long as it takes, if the paint will indeed mix) or the paint to spray decently by following MMP's instructions to the letter. I could do well enough by following some directions I found on the internet that basically contradicted everything MMP said about thinning, but both methods were rather unstable, and I simply don't like chemistry-set paints. Also, several of the early colors did not match either common references or MMP's own color cards. I have a lot of these paints, most unopened, that anyone who is willing to pay the postage (continental USA only) can have.

I recently bought a bottle of Grey Japanese Zero (Amber) (MMP has trouble using the normal designations, original language or translation, and they prefer the British spelling of gray, strange for a domestic manufacturer) to compare with other brands. It seems to be of a slightly thinner viscosity, and so far the pink gunk hasn't settled to the bottom. Maybe they've changed formulas a bit. The bottle does say it can be thinned to any consistency with the proprietary thinner. Ironically, the MMP thinner is excellent at cleaning any acrylic I've tried from color cups and airbrush plumbing.

I found out early on that the guy who answers the phone at MMP was snottily sure that any and all problems were mine to solve, so, sorry, I won't be buying more MMP products except to make the occasional color comparison.

Interestingly, I put this out on my private e-mail list, and five guys who are very "picky" about the paint they use also swear by these paints.

Fortunately for me, one of my three LHS's doesn't get rid of anything, ever, so he still has his rack of Modelmaster metalizer paints, and had (until I walked in this morning) four bottles of metalizer sealer, which are now here. One thin coat of that over the paint job when completed will seal things in very nicely.

I just got through comparing their RAF colors with the Tamiya colors and with the few bottles of Xtracrylix I have left and the MMP paints are spot-on. Also their RLM 74/75/76.

As far as i d i o t s on phones are concerned, the old rule about opinions and a part of the body we all possess apply.

Turned out wonderful, my friend @tcinla!

I’ve always fancied those unusual camo experiments used by some squadrons during the 1940 west campaign. Moerdes is one of the most know (and probably the most significant in model preferences) but there are other, non-ace planes, also very odd and wonderful.
Great work, and fast as usual Tom!
I’m about to resume the painting on the E-1, though I’m still waiting for some wheels masks from Dead Design to arrive

@eb801 - just get the ones you need to do one Luftwaffe airplane. You'll be using it for all the rest.

No need to replace everything. I might have said I was saying good-bye to Tamiya, but no way, really. That stuff is bulletproof. But the nice thing is, I can use the two together (just don't mix them - one is alcohol-based and one is water-based), and if I need to, I can mix the Tamiya to match a MMP color if I didn't get it right.