I managed to get some work done today. I had previously sprayed Tamiya Clear Gloss on the areas that would get the decals, and it had dried overnight. The decals all come from a variety of sets of decals I already had. There are no roundels on the underside of the wings, so the decals consisted of two wing roundels, two fuselage roundels, fin flashes on the vertical stabilizer, and the aircraft serial number on the rear fuselage. I am sure the actual airplane had a lot of stencils and other markings, but I decided not to try to simulate any markings since they would be a shot in the dark. The decals all went on without trouble using MicroSet and MicroSol. I let the decals dry for 12 hours and then covered the airframe with Tamiya Clear Flat.
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1. Weathering already applied over the wing roundel.
I let the Tamiya Flat dry for several hours and then added the weathering. I wanted to depict a plane that had spent some time in the sun and in an atmosphere saturated with salty air. I planned to use an off-white artist oil called "Linen". The method is pretty simple (as long as you have a rock-solid clear coat). The first step is to strategically apply dots of the linen paint in areas to receive the weathering.
I let the paint dry for a few minutes, and then use a wide brush damp with mineral spirits to begin to gradually move the paint where you want it to get your desired effects. Always dragging the brush in the direction of airflow, I start out with a single pass of the brush over the surface.
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1. Oil paint after first pass with mineral spirits.
After each pass with the brush, be sure to wipe off any paint on the brush with a paper towel. My second pass over the surface establishes how I want the surface to look. I keep gently moving the paint around using the mineral spirits until I am happy with the effect. The mineral spirits dry flat, so no need to worry about messing up your flat coat.
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1. Oil weathering effect complete.
After I got all of the surfaces done, I used a similar technique using a dark gray oil paint to add some oil and fuel leaks on the plane. I use a little reddish brown to simulate hydraulic leaks near the landing gear.
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1. Black oils applied for oil leaks and around aileron hinges.
The last thing I did was apply some very thin black using my airbrush to add some exhaust stains. While I had the airbrush out I applied some gunpowder staining around the wing-mounted machine guns. I think it is so cool that this bomber had wing-mounted machine guns that I couldn't miss highlighting their locations.
Well, that's it for now. The last things to do include adding all of the little fiddly bits to the plane and removing the masks. Everyone stay safe.
