Long overdue update

[noxioux]

Semi-whiff B-17 is finished.  It's only a whiff in the sense that it doesn't represent any actual aircraft.  More of a hodgepodge of B-17-ness.  But it made a good impression on the recipient.  I did something different for the paint:  A coat of krylon metallic silver went over the primer, and then gunze acrylics over that.  A few brushes with some sandpaper brought little bits of silver out, and the rest of the weathering was with a plain oil wash and the tamiya weathering master stuff.  The colors on the camo didn't come out quite right, but I'm OK with that.  When you realize that a lot of these planes were painted with a mop and bucket in the field, it's very liberating.  The base is a photo of a bombed-out Berlin, and the plane sits on a 1/2" acrylic rod epoxied in.

The antenna wires are made with 6x fly leader, threaded and tied to some small copper wire 'turnbuckles'.  This is the second plane I've done that way, and I like it.  If the antennae get screwed up, I can just clip them and tie on fresh ones.  The real trick is going to be making smaller turnbuckles.

I didn't do too hot on the clear parts.  But practice makes perfect.









And on the bench, a departure for me, a 1/700 Slava Class missile cruiser.  I'm rather proud of the water, which was made with transparent acrylic caulk and several layers of transparet oil paints--just glazing like the old masters seems to work very well.  Whitecaps are just drybrushed oil paint.  I use a mixture of Liquin and cobalt dryer to make a very good, fast-drying medium for my oils.  Which means you don't have to wait a week for it to dry.  It will usually dry to the touch in about 24 hours.  It is hard on brushes, though.

I really liked the 1/700 IJN submarines I saw at the Salt Lake IPMS show, and I was going to do one of those, with the hangar and seaplanes, etc. . .  But I'll be damned if I'll shell out $120 for a 4" sub kit.  Just can't do it.





Next up:  An interpretation of the Army #1 prototype Blue Thunder.

[sequoiaranger]

That's quite an inventive stand you have, incorporating an American star and a photo of an industrial area being bombed.

[GTX]

Good work on both!

Regards,

Greg

[lancer]

Love the early RAF day fighter scheme on the B17, looks very right somwhow

[arkon]

love the bomb dropping

[Captain Canada]

"wreaking havoc amongst the dirty clothes pile of the Reich "



Very nicely done....love the camo and colours. Your ship looks sweet as well. Great job on the water. And I have to agree with you on the price of those subs.....ridiculous !

[NARSES2]

Nice jobs 

[lancer]

How did you do the sea base on the ship model? I only as as I have a flying boat I want to put on a water base and don't have a clue about how ot go about making one.

[noxioux]

Lancer,

It was much easier than I expected.  I had a small tube of paintable latex caulking laying around, and I thought I'd just try it.  You want the caulk to be the clear kind--that gives everything a kind of realistic translucence that really doesn't show in the pics--but it's there!

1. Grab a small, flat surface.  If you're doing a floatplane, styrofoam might be a good idea, so you can counter-sink the floats.  I used a small piece of sintra.
2. I glued the waterline base from the model kit to the sintra, so I'd know how the boat was going to sit, and make it easier to make the water look like it was flowing around the hull.
3. I put a dab of oil on the hull of the ship (to keep the caulk from sticking).  Then I taped the hull down on the waterline base.  This was so I could flow the water up along the hull and up against the bow.
4. I then glooped the caulk all over the base, trying to keep it uneven and spotty (for realism).
5. I took a toothpick, and started pulling and pushing the caulk around in random patterns.  You really just have to try it--once you have your hands in it, it will make sense what you need to do.  I also dabbed at the caulk, pulling it up to make the crests of the waves, etc. . .  This is all with the toothpick, but you could try other stuff.  Like maybe popsickle sticks.

The caulk took awhile to dry, and I was playing with it the whole time.  The nice thing about this is a tube of caulk is only a couple bucks.  No such thing as an expensive mistake here. . .  So if you screw it up, you're only out the time it took.

Once I had the caulk in a nice watery, wavy looking pattern, I took the ship's hull off, and let it cure overnight.  After it cured, I used oil paints and Liquin (a fast-drying painting medium).  You can find liquin in just about any place that sells art supplies--it's a Windsor-Newton product.  But any alkyd medium would do just fine.  The problem is they know what to charge for the stuff--it ain't cheap.  You could use another gel type medium (something thicker than paint thinner or water), but it might take a lot longer for the individual coats to dry.

For colors, I used pthalo green and pthalo blue, some ultramarine blue and a little bit of cobalt blue.  These are all common artists oil colors.  For each individual coat, I use a lot of medium and just a little bit of paint.  The trick is to use a lot of thin coats to build up the color and depth.  The old dutch masters invented this technique, which is called 'glazing'.  It's amazing what you can do with color using this technique.

Hopefully this is all new.  I hope I don't sound like an idiot explaining stuff you already would know. . .

Anyway, you lay down a glaze, and let it dry.  Repeat as necessary.  I did lay down the green first, and then added more blue later.  Be conservative, you can always add more paint layers later.  The liquin would help a bunch at this stage, as it can dry to the touch in just a day or two.  I use a few drops of cobalt dryer in mine, which will allow it to dry almost overnight.  I have paintings that are going on 12 years old using this stuff, and none of it's peeled off the canvas yet. . .

You can glaze with acrylics, but I find that the oils are more forgiving for this sort of thing.

The last step, which is just a bunch more smaller steps, is to add the wave tops/whitecaps.  All I did here was mix some white oil paint and medium, and dabbed it on using very little paint and a lot of dabbing/dry-brushing.  Drybrushing some thicker white paint was the very last thing I did.  And I may even do more dry brushing as I finish the model, just to emphasize the wake of the ship a little more.

But check this video out on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAcs_nFD7bA, it gave me some ideas about how to go about making the water, and counter-sinking the floats on a seaplane.

There are more realistic ways to do the water, but this one is clean, fast, cheap and non-toxic!

[sandiego89]

Great water tip.  Will have to try that.  Thank you for sharing. 

[John Howling Mouse]

All round great thread: terrific B-17, bomb and base.  And great "how-to" on the water, which looks incredibly real, by the way.  Super!