P-40 Egg Plane, Comrade!

[Mossie]

Hasegawa P-40 Egg plane, just in case you hadn't worked it out.   A quick build, a month later!  Heck, at least I'm getting em finished!!!

[Mossie]

Based on this profile:




One of two Egg Planes I picked up at the Huddersfield show, along with an F-15.  Like I said, it was supposed to take me less than two weeks, but a cold bug & general procrastination put paid to that!  Not to mention I didn't think to try & get hold of the decals until it was time to place them (thanks to thedarkmaster for the numbers).  Bit of an exercise in weathering, I never done it to this extent before.

Putting the kit together wasn't quite as straight forward as I thought it would be, the seam took a bit of budging & all the mating surfaces had a raised edge to them.  I had to sand this to get the parts to fit well, but it resulted in a V shape & all the joins needed filler, some plenty.  I got the filler on & was all but finished with the PSR when I cracked the egg.  The join on the bottom popped & I had to squeeze it gently to stick it again, taking care not to crack it all the way.  This resulted in a large gap that needed much PSR & I haven't quite eliminated it, although the paint has pretty much hidden it if you don't look too closely.

Slapped good ol' Halfords grey primer on it & painted it up with a hairy stick in standard USAAF olive & grey using Humbrol Acrylics.  I then hit the top side with Halfords white primer.  I used a sponge sanding pad to selectively scrub away the primer to leave patches of green.  Except it looked more grey under the paint, so I covered the model in a very dilute wash of the base colour, let it dry partially, then rubbed it away with kitchen roll.  Overdid it a bit, so applied a wash of white to counter it.  It gave an uneven finish that I was quite happy with.  I dry brushed the underside with two different shades of grey to get a worn effect.  I did the prop spinner in a similar way, using yeloow as the base as a bit of artistic liscence.

The Red Stars came from a MiG-37 Ferret kit & thedarkmaster very kindly supplied the numbers.  I printed the за Родину (Za RODINA) titles onto decal paper & appropriated the works colour laserjet (my inkjet was no good) for this purpose, double printing to get some depth of colour.  I tested them on a scrap A-10 wing & found they bled a little so I covered the decal in Klear.  They went on fairly but you could tell they were home printed, but the next step helped.  The red decals really looked at odds with the weathered finish (not to mention three slightly different shades!) so I washed them in white, which also blended in the Za Rodina & made it looked less like a DIY decal.

In the end I'm pretty happy with it.  The kits been around a while so the fit wasn't quite as good as I was expecting & the main thing I need to improve on is getting a half decent finish on my canopies, I really had trouble again.  Apart from that, I enjoyed it & tried out a couple of new skills into the bargain!

Simon

[Vulcan7]

an Eggseptional build Mossie    (.....sorry I'll get me coat  )

[GTX]

Now we know what you wanted those Red numbers for...nice!

Regards,

Greg

[PanzerWulff]

I love it LOL I noticed you posted it as inspiration in the "Egg Plane SCRAMBLE" thread as inspiration Great job
"Panzer"

[Mossie]

Well, it was meant to be but it nearly ended up being hard boiled!  Are you at Cosford Duncan?  We'll go on an Egg Hunt!

Thanks guys!!!

[cthulhu77]

Fantastic Egg What if !!!

[Brian da Basher]

Very nice weathering Mossie!

Brian da Basher

[Mossie]

Ta guys!

[nev]

Really nice job on the winter white-wash Simon

[John Howling Mouse]

My favorite feature is how you accounted for the egg-shape in your exhaust streak: clever!   

[Mossie]

Nev, couldn't be a simpler technique, otherwise I'd have trouble!  I read it sometime ago on the old Airfix forum IIRC.  Just apply Halfords white & sand away, I went a little over the top for but it's an over the top the build!

Baz, it just seemed natural to take the exhaust stain higher, the plane was squashed so I thought, why not?

Thanks again!

My two P-40's together:

[chrisonord]

Hey Simon,
Are you going to roll it down a hill on Easter Sunday??
Beats the crap out of using painted boiled eggs 
Nice work an egcellent build if I say so my self.
Chris.

[Mossie]

Thanks Chris!  Probably not, simply because the biggest hills around here are the molehills!