Dragon Natter

[Brian da Basher]

A box of Wehrmacht/Luftwaffe C-rations? A couple of magazines or blueprints or tech manuals? A copy of Mein Kampf?

It never fails to amaze and delight me to see you add life to your scenes, HOG!

Brian da Basher

[HOG]

Hoyhoy`al
A new member of the family has finally dropped out in to make her apperance. Weighing in at 9 1/2 pounds and a decibel level that contravenes several military noise restricions is Ruby May. How can somthing so small be so disruptive to my lifestyle



Note to family-   If you wanted to get somthing to crap on my shoulder I`m sure a parrot would have been easier, oh and by the way, I`m the one with the beard.

Anyway back to normalcy. I`m due back in hospitol over the next few days to have some hardware removed from the ankle so I thought I`l post this before I forget.
Coat rack added with buckets moved to right. Shelves dropped, no room.





One to finish for HitlerJugend figure and with Herr Silbier for scale. It occurred to me the other night (around2.30) that if the other Natter is going to be on the crane hoisted to be lowered onto the trailer, then I needed somthing for it to be lifted from. Scratched from Evergeen to match other trailer/trestle on 1st Natter with a rear trestle roughed from images from the Shiffer book. I forgot to scratch woodgrain into the plastic as mention earlier so had to paint this, and not to unhappy with result. Base coat acrylic with grain in oils. When I next tried to give another grain colour/effect the first to started to lift so sprayed with Tamiya clears, a mix of red and yellow cut with a little green to give a browny tone and thinned with cellulose thinnrs for quick drying. (a before an after pic)





Nearly forgot, with the buckets are some standard German helmets with a leather back to protect the neck in red. I found a pic of civilian firemen postwar and I thought a simple addittion. Anyone know what the military used in the war?
Cheers

[Ed S]

HOG, congrats on the new member of the family.   

And the diorama is looking good too.  The wood grain on the support frame looks pretty good.

Ed

[Brian da Basher]

Your new granddaughter is a sweatheart, HOG, and so is your latest diorama update! Best of luck with the ankle. I hope you heal up quick and are back with us soon.

Brian da Basher

[HOG]

Hoyhoy`al
Not much progress made due to other commitments (thought I`d forgotten how to change a nappy after 25+ years, but its like a bike. Fall off once and you can do it whenever without a thought), but I just thought I`d post this, more of a tip really.
I needed 8 little wheels to go on the trollies in last post and scratchbox was outastock so using my favourite shape supplier I sliced some tube into thinish sections and stuck them onto a flat bit of MDF with double sided tape. A couple of scrap bits of 1mm (40thou) card as depth guides and filled with Milliput. When set a quick wet n dry bash and voila 8 near identical wheels without all the hassle of measuring and cutting at right angles etc.



Other tip, the wet n dry is d/sided taped onto a small 6x4 block of acrylic as I`ve found wood warps and glass is to d@mn dangerous. Simple really but I thought it might be of use to some of our younger wiffers.
Will post more soon but now I have to start chopping some figures
Gary
ps
yes I know theres 9 but I always make a few spare for the monster under the bench when building bits.

[Eddie M.]

Good to see more progress pix and a hardy congrats on the addition to the family. I'm still trying to decide who has more hair, you or her!
    Eddie

[matrixone]

HOG,

There is some information on the camouflage of the Natter in the Classic book titled Projekt Natter on pages 119 and 120.
The intended colors for the operational Natters was a base coat of RLM 76 (or light green) and a scribble of RLM 82, there is a nice color picture of one of the two captured Natters brought to the U.S.A. after the war that clearly shows the colors used. For a long time these colors were thought to be painted on by its American captors post war, now there is new evidence that proves these were in fact the original German colors. It is almost certain these same colors were also used on the M22 and M23.

HTH

Matrixone

[HOG]

Hi Eddie,
Thanks for the nice thoughts. At the minute I think I`m a beard and a half ahead but as to the future? My wife bought me a present at Christmas as somthing to help keep my hair in and gave me a rather nice box.

Hi`s also Matrix,
At the moment the model is in a light slate green primer coat as last shown and a ripple of 82 will add that little somthing and as the windows are still masked will be simple to do. Like your preshading on the He100  and 109 models, but what does `HTH` mean?

Meanwhile back at the Hogcupboard, I`ve just had a frustrating day. When I rebuilt the Natter, I added some .22 shot to the nose, in an attempt to help balance the bugger when trying to display in the official jacking/lifting positions. Now I`ve rebuilt the support jig into somthing more industrial and realistic looking and changed the strapping from masking tape to wine bottle foil but continued to use the same guage soft brass wire that I made the original lifting rings from. It now balances better but the addittional weight makes the rings open and drops the model. It seems the farce is strong with me today
Oh well back to the drawing board.

[matrixone]

HOG,

HTH means ''hope this helps''

When the war ended the Germans were in the process of phasing out the light blue RLM 76 color and was starting to use the light green color for the undersurface camouflage color, thats why there was two different undersurface colors seen on late war aircraft. Not all the factories used up the blue version of the color 76 before the war ended so new aircraft captured at the factories could still be seen painted in that older color, while at other factories the updated light green color had been in use for months.
Focke-Wulf Fw 190D-9's built by Fieseler at Kassel used the blue 76 color almost to the end of the war while the Mimetall factory producing the Fw 190D-9 at Erfurt had been using the light green undersurface color for months before the other Fw 190 aircraft factories.

It is unknown if the light green paint would have been been called 76 or given a new RLM number.
Had the war dragged on for a few more months the light green color would have been used on all new aircraft production.

Matrixone

[sotoolslinger]

Congrats and blessings on the new critter.

[HOG]

Thanks Matrixone,  HTH  it surely has.

Well it`s 2.18 am here in the UK and I think I might have solved my prob. Don`t have any ends to pull apart.



Don`t know whats happening with the camera, perhaps like me it`s tired, anyway now instead of rings I`m making tadpoles. Putting the wire over the same size rod but twisting the ends together.  The beam has holes drilled in to accept the `twisted`end (sounds like a good name for a band) and the straps have the `twist`inside the folded end. Now I have tro join the three bits together and thougt I might get away with making a `d` bit like a carabiner (r maybe its called a shackle) anyway by glueing a bit of streched sprue across the join to hold the split together. Anyway we`ll see. life sized bits added for interest with a 1 inch line at the bottom for scale and yes I do wear rather thick glasses

[HOG]

Hoyhoy`al

LOOK MA, NO HANDS!

At last its dangling on its own.




And just for atmosphere






Obviously not finished yet, but getting this far has gotten over quite a few bugs that were holding me up such as crane cable etc. Thanks for the input Matrixone, re the colours for this kit. When spraying this I was thinking if the airframe is on a trestle (liker the other will be displayed) how far would the painter be able to reach with his industrial Badger/Aztec and tried to finish accordingly.
Now for the rest of it, to insanity and beyond.

cheers

[Brian da Basher]

Holy cow HOG that looks amazingly real! Once you get this all together, you could snap a few pics and fool the best of "experten".

Astounding!!!



Brian da Basher

[Eddie M.]

It's very hard to express my admiration for your work with so few words in the English language, but suffice it to say, I'm very happy you share your work with us. You are the definition of an artist.
    Eddie

[BlackOps]

Impressive would be an understatement so I'll just say WOW! So what museum will this be going too?