W.I.P. pics of new projects....

[matrixone]

Dracula is now finished so work on this Me 410 will start to speed up now...

...the canopy is glued on and masked, I had a lot of trouble with the canopy and getting a good fit. The parts are not that well thought out on this kit. To make things even worse I spilled glue on the windscreen and ruined it, lucky for me this kit does come with two windscreens but the problem here is I will be using the wrong type of windscreen for the version I wanted to do. Some kits seem like they are cursed.

Matrixone

[matrixone]

Mork work on the Me 410,
The airframe is mostly assembled and nearly ready for paint. The spinners were masked off and the spirals painted, the propeller blades are partly weathered and need some airbrush work, the main wheels are painted but no weathering done on them yet, the weathering on them will be done next time I need to use the airbrush.



Here is the little 1/72 scale Hasegawa Mercedes Benz staff car I just started.
The car body has been painted gloss black and the rims and radiator were sprayed AlcladII Chrome.
I want to finish this staff car before I finish the two what-if Me 262's so the staff car can be used in some of the Me 262 pics.




Matrixone

[PR19_Kit]

......and the spirals painted..............

Four words that cover a HUGE talent! 

[NARSES2]

......and the spirals painted..............

Four words that cover a HUGE talent! 

Thinking exactly the same thing

[matrixone]

Thanks very much Kit and NARSES!

Without Tamiya masking tape I could not have painted the spirals, I cut the Tamiya tape into very thin strips and carefully placed them on the spinners. It took a couple tries to get the spirals the right shape.

There is another way to paint the spinner spirals and thats with a liner paint brush, a liner paint brush is a very small diameter brush with long bristles. What I did was first paint the spinner gloss black and then use flat white paint to paint on the spiral. I always started the spiral at the front of the spinner and slowly worked my way back, mounting the spinner to a round toothpick makes painting and handling easier.
On 1/72 scale models I prefer to hand paint spinner spirals, masking on such small spinners is possible but hand painting is easier to do.

Matrixone

[NARSES2]

Hand paint 1/72 spinner spirals ? 

[matrixone]

...and even more progress on these models.

The main wheels and prop blades for the Me 410 are about as weathered as they are going to get so they are crossed off the to-do list.
I decided to build one of the pilot figures that came with the Me 410, here you can see the figure is built and has the face and flight suit painted, I used my airbrush for this so none of the detail will get flooded out with brushed on paint...I also added the shading to the flight suit with my airbrush, the shading is hard to see in my pics and the pic that shows the back of the figure shows the shading the best. I have since detail painted the figure and will soon paint the facial features using oil paint.

The little Mercedes Benz staff car is close to being finished and will finish it off as soon as the oil paint I used to paint the seats fully dries. This kit is unusual in not having decals, instead they give you stickers. You can just barely see the license plate number in the front.



And here is the undersurfaces of the Me 410 after the preshading has been sprayed on, I will be spraying a very thin coat of RLM 76 to tone down the preshading and only the areas around the engine cowls will be left as they are.



Matrixone

[matrixone]

...and even more pics,

The splinter pattern on the wings was airbrushed free handed, after the basic colors of RLM 75 and RLM74 were painted on I used lightened versions of these colors to add a little fading to some of the panels and the wing roots.


The rest of the camo will be painted Tuesday, I found its easier to paint the wings and fuselage seperately so I have at least some parts of the model will have dry paint which makes it easier to handle so I don't put fingerprints in wet paint.

Here are some pics of the Mercedes staff car and pilot figure from the Me 410 kit, the figure just needs a flat clear coat and its done.




Matrixone

[NARSES2]

Nice work. The Mercedes looks superb

[Dizzyfugu]

Hand paint 1/72 spinner spirals ? 

Yes...? Pretty easy, with a good brush and the spinner fixed on a pin or something similar, so you can turn/twist it in your fingers while holding the brush in place. It's not as hard as it might sound, and the results are not bad. Me, I would never consider masking a spinner, though... 

Great work here, like it very much. 

[matrixone]

Thanks NARSES2 and Dizzyfugu!

When hand painting spinner spirals I mount them on a round toothpick so I can turn them while painting on the spiral, starting at the front of the spinner and working my way towards the back while slowly turning the spinner works pretty well.
Were it not for Tamiya tape I would not even try masking and painting the spinners.

Matrixone

[matrixone]

The last of the camouflage has been sprayed on the Me 410, also while I had the airbrush out I masked and painted the white fuselage band too.




I did not intend for this model to be a what-if but thanks to some poor research by Aeromaster my model will end up a what-if...the markings I wanted to use for my model were for 3U+AA of ZG 26, sounds plausible right? Wrong! I only recently found out there was no 3U+AA, Aeromaster must have mis-read the markings of a Me 410 photograph. They don't call Aeromaster ''Errormaster'' for nothing.


Matrixone

[Cobra]

Mistake or Not, you did a Superb Job with the Markings & Overall Paint & Decal scheme Hope to see More Superb Work from You Dan

[matrixone]

Thanks Dan, much appreciated.

The mistakes on this model are starting to pile up, first the accident with the canopy then finding out my markings choice was bogus, and now this morning some of the fuel filler decals shattered when putting them on the model...I was able to save the markings but it was not easy and they don't look very good so I will have to add some extra heavy weathering over them to cover up the mess.

Matrixone

[matrixone]

Markings are now all on the Me 410, after another coat of Future to seal in the decals I can get down to weathering this thing!




Matrixone