Revell/Hasegawa 1/32 Supermarine Spitfire Mk I/II Build Part V-The Unbearable Lightness Of Painting!

Started by Seamus Boughe · 9 · 11 years ago
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    Seamus Boughe said 11 years, 1 month ago:

    Well, the major painting stage is finally over. Faith & Begorrah it was the most tedious of any painting stage that I have ever experienced. A tri-color camouflage scheme on a 1/32 aircraft is tough enough, yet I compounded things further when I decided to paint the roundels, codes, walkways, gun covers, fin flash, and fuselage band (still deciding on whether or not to paint the serials also. Mask, paint, dry, mask , paint , dry, rinse and repeat for five straight nights. What a paint suck! For all the paint I used on this one kit, I could have covered two and one half 1/48 kits. To make things worse, I exhausted my last bottles of Floquil Military Colors Enamel RAF Dark Earth and RAF Dark Green. Have no idea where I am going to source my RAF colors from now, maybe I should do a few Luftwaffe builds.Have a little touching up to do then on to the next phase which is decaling & weathering.

    9 attached images. Click to enlarge.

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    Frank Cronin said 11 years, 1 month ago:

    Seamus,
    This is absolutely stunning. Looks like all you work has paid off in spades. I will raise a pint in your honor at dinner tonight. I think I will also throw in a bit of scotch. You did a great job but at my age I am going to stick to decals. Can't wait to see this when it's done.

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    Erich Goldbach said 11 years, 1 month ago:

    Seamus,This model looks Great so far! All that tape on-paint, tape off-paint,( repeat) is definitely going to pay off in the end for sure in spite of the bottle of aspirin and all of the anxiety you went through doing it for 5 nights! Look forward to the finished model sitting on that beauty of a base you made for it.
    Cheers, Erich

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    Seamus Boughe said 11 years, 1 month ago:

    Thank you kindly, lads. Although the results are definitely worth the effort, I do not think I will be painting the markings on my next several projects, whatever they may be. I'll take a clue from Frank and stick with decals for a while. On the plus side, I get to avoid any potential decal woes (the only decals I will be using are the Polish squadron markings, presentation markings, and data stencils. Not sure if I will use serial decals though), I will get a nice consistency with my weathering, and I do not have to do an overall gloss coat, just some local glossing. I used Montex painting masks for the insignias, codes, and fin flash. I highly recommend this product as it is very easy to use, sticks very well to avoid over-spray/bleed-under, yet does not pull up paint or leave residue when removed. As far as the camouflage pattern goes, I used artist's vellum which is a heavy type of tracing paper. I traced the pattern from an enlarged instruction sheet and included a few panel lines which I matched to those on the kit. I held the masks down with small blobs of Silly Putty and sprayed away. No fuss no muss, just takes a bit of patience and a lot of time. At this point I am feeling a bit burned out and will take a two day hiatus away from the Spitfire. I will probably indulge in my other hobby, which is flight simulation, but I sure as hell won't be flying a Spitfire, Maybe a P-40 or P-47.

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    Seamus Boughe said 11 years, 1 month ago:

    Took these photos about an hour ago after giving the "Spit" it's first flat coat. I use Testor's Model Master acrylic clear flat strained through a piece of pantyhose then airbrushed at 15psi in a dusting motion. Everything is evened out and the finish is dead flat. I use this flat coat as it gives an amazing "tooth" for pastels. Eventually, I will flat coat it with Floquil enamel flat which dries with a slight sheen giving off the impression that the "Spit" is made from metal.

    3 attached images. Click to enlarge.

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    Jaime Carreon said 11 years, 1 month ago:

    Seamus, my friend, you have more patience than I do! Beautiful model...

    Where did you get that neat stand?

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    Seamus Boughe said 11 years, 1 month ago:

    Jaime

    Go to http://www.umm-usa.com for the stand as well as many other unique tools and products for the scale modeler.

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    Simon Whitney said 11 years, 1 month ago:

    Seamus, what can I say. Absolutely fantastic job there. The patience to mask paint dry etc, shows. And you are right about 1/32 scale planes when it comes to paint usage.
    They seem to drink it LOL.
    Looking forward to the final posting on this one.

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    neil foster said 11 years, 1 month ago:

    Seamus, this is looking amazing , those rivets at the wing root look perfect with paint on, can't wait to see this bad boy when it's finished.
    Cheers N.