Messerschmitt Me 163 S, Academy 1/72

[MichelC]

Thank you guys for the nice words!

I'd forgotten two things before painting: oxygen tubes and head-rests.

Solder is softer and easier to work but I didn't have any of the right diameter so copper wire had to do.



Dry fit of the tubes:



The head-rests were scratched form a piece of sprue and got a special treatment to give them the synthetic leather texture as can be seen on the reference pics: soften them with liquid cement and press them against a piece of fine mesh. 



In the past I was using mesh from a Lipton tea bag (no, no I'm not from the UK) but I have found finer mesh since!



That comes from a water filter cartridge. It's the mesh that holds the tiny carbon pellets inside the cartridge and it's very, very fine, which is good for 1/72 (yes people, it is 1/72!!)

And now everything is ready for painting!





More soon.

Michel

[PR19_Kit]

I wonder what magnification microscope he uses for these jobs..................? 

[Ian the Kiwi Herder]

Good thought, Mr S.... imagine the tweezers he must use aswell  , either that or he has a pack (is that the correct collective noun ??), of highly trained and motivated spiders to do his bidding !!, or maybe sub-atomic robots... thassit, he's using nanite technology !!

Ian

[NARSES2]

either that or he has a pack (is that the correct collective noun ??), of highly trained and motivated spiders to do his bidding !!,
Ian[/color]

Nope, it's cluster or clutter 

[MichelC]

Hey, you guys sure are giving an entirely new meaning to the terms "What if modelling"!

So let's see...this weekend I packed up my Hubble Space Microscope, gave my 8-legged nanobots a rest, broke out my Iwata plasma atomizer and shot the works with some Gunze sub-atomic particles!  

Joking aside, I did get into the painting, starting with a coat of Mr. Surfacer 1200 primer to unify the diversity of materials used and give a proper base to the acrylics I'm going to use.





Once a coat or primer has been laid down one can finally see the detailing work done in all its glory! Beats resin any day of the week, methinks. I'm saying this because there is a nice CMK resin set for this kit but I don't think I'd have been able to achieve this level of detail if I'd used it.

I thin the surfacer with Mr. Leveling Thinner, which contains retarder but apparently not enough so I always add a few drops of Mr. Retarder to avoid cobwebs forming from the stuff drying too fast. (Gee, people are really going to think there are spiders involved here...)



Next I shot the Gunze H416 RLM 66.



Then I played around with darker and lighter shades of the RLM 66 for some zenithal lighting effect (darker shades shot from the bottom up and into lower corners, lighter from the top down and onto the upper flat surfaces) and some post-shading to break up uniformity.









As you can see on the last pic I did some chipping on the back side wall by spraying a lighter shade of gray first and then applying some Maskol with a sponge before shooting the RLM 66. Couldn't leave this big, empty area like this, could I? Way too boring...  

Next I'll do the detail painting with my one molecule-thin hair paintbrush!  

Michel

[NARSES2]

That looks the business

[PR19_Kit]

Blimey, it almost SMELLS right! 

[Ian the Kiwi Herder]

It's 1:72 !!
It's 1:72 !!
It's 1:72 !!
It's 1:72 !!
It's 1:72 !!
It's 1:72 !!

Ian

[PR19_Kit]

It's 1:72 !!
It's 1:72 !!
It's 1:72 !!
It's 1:72 !!
It's 1:72 !!
It's 1:72 !!

Exactly, and the piccies are 1/32!

[Go4fun]

As my girlfirend's 8 year old nephew would say "Dat Instan"!!!! 
I tried to restart on N-Scale trains and now I realize they shrink in the last 15 years!  I got the couplers for 25 cars, an engine unot and two cabooses done and said "Nuff!" to that. It's 1/25th or larger for me now except for space craft.
Ehhh, how expensive are those nanonite spiders? 

[Caveman]

nah, i think he is just joshing us. He uses normal tweezers to hold the small tweezers to hold the pieces...

[MichelC]

Thank you guys for your comms. It's motivating to know there's people out there who appreciate! 

As you seem to like my work on the pit, here are some pics of my B&V 194's office. It's 1/72 as well and only plastic + scratch, no PE (xept the seatbelts).

Enjoy!

[PR19_Kit]

Told you, the altimeter's in calibrated in feet.............. 

Gordon Bennet, how DOES he do it? 

[scooter]

Gordon Bennet, how DOES he do it? 

Agreed, Kit.

[MichelC]

Gordon Bennet, how DOES he do it?  

Agreed, Kit.

Thank you guys but it's actually quite simple. You just have to sit right.