Allan's new model in progress--a very

[Allan]

Yes! What if Hartmann said okay let's try out low-viz national markings. It's the 1/48 Fujimi 109G/K kit, the one with the huge sheet of decals. I've always had a soft spot for this kit. It's easy to make and looks like the real thing.

Would it look somehing like this?

Also, I've very filthied it up with charcoal and pencil lead and lots of shades of light blue and blue-grey and put on markings that aren't accurate, but what the hell I think it looks cool like this. MFM!

The heart and Karaya marking: first I cut out a piece of clear deal and painted it light blue-grey with dabs of dark grey as camo. Then put that piece of decal on the plane and slid the heart and Karaya decal over it to make it look like the white has been painted aound the heart and Karaya. Maybe you can't see it in these photographs.

I'll post some more piccies once it's well and truly finished.






Allan in Canberra

[The Rat]

You realise of course that the very idea would send some people apoplectic?


Great thought eh?!   And a good model too.


But OH MY STARS AND GARTERS!!! What is that all over the table? You've got one drained beer glass, a full one, a glass of wine, and what might be a gin and tonic...

Was it that stressfull?  

 

[Allan]

Hi Dave and thanks.

Yes, the photos were taken last night, Wednesday, at the Canberra Italo-Australian Club where I meet a good mate every week for a vino or two. That's where almost all of my model shots get taken. He E-mails them to me next morning, I photobucket them and send them to this site for your enjoyment.

He had the beer, two of them, and I had the red wine followed by a glass of lemonade. The pizza at the club is pretty good too.

Allan in Canberra

two peanuts were walking in a dangerous part of town when one was asssaulted.

[cthulhu77]

I actually think he would have liked those markings...very nice looking!  

[Brian da Basher]

Allan that is one fantastic paint scheme! I love it and think it would be perfect for the Eastern Front! Absolutely gorgeous!

Brian da Basher

[Allan]

Thanks Brian,

High praise indeed from the master himself!!!!

Allan in Canberra

One thing I decided to try with this model is to paint the bases of the prop blades white as well. Just covered them with tape, leaving the bases uncovered and the tape standing proud from the surface. Then sprayed them with a cheap rattle can of white, just as I did with the fuselage. I tried a similar effect with the tailplanes.

Wheels: first sprayed rattle can black for the hubs and then brush-painted tyre rubber. Then used a nylon black pen to run around the hubs to clearly delineate the two colors. Then my fav varnish Testors flat lightly sprayed to fix the colors.

[Damian2]

I like it...its a dirty worn plane   my fav! You can keep your showroom, fresh off the assembly line look. Give me a war plane that looks like its been to war!

[Sisko]

Hey Allan nice 109.

Nice to see an aircraft all dirty like that!

[Davey B]

Oh yeah... winter camo!        

[John Howling Mouse]

I like it...its a dirty worn plane  my fav! You can keep your showroom, fresh off the assembly line look. Give me a war plane that looks like its been to war!

Yep, what he said.      

Is the canopy removed just for viewing?  Do you have pics of it with the canopy in place?

[matrixone]

Allan,

Nice 109, the low-vis camo and markings are more fact than fiction, some late war Bf 109s were painted in overall RLM 76 or 77 and used as high altitude fighter cover for the heavily armored Fw 190 bomber killers.

Also some Bf 109s were used by II./NJG 11 for low level night attack roles, these aircraft had overall RLM 76 camouflage with white markings, I am looking at a picture of ''white 44'' an aircraft that was used by II./NJG 11 and it has all white markings on the pale blue camouflage. Even the usual black/white spinner spiral has been toned down, it looks like it is painted in gray and white.
Only the swastika and underwing crosses are in the usual black color. The wing root also is painted a dark color, possibly black.

In one of my reference books there are some photographs of some short nosed Fw 190s that had the national markings oversprayed with the uppersurface camouflage colors, they can just barely be seen under the paint. They looked like the markings were lightly sprayed over to improve the camouflage effect instead of aircraft that had been repaired and rushed back into service.


I still have one of those Fujimi kits in my stash, an excellent kit when it was first released many years ago and I really liked the decal sheet that came with it.
Now that I have many of the new Hasegawa Bf 109s in my stash my Fujimi 109 will likely be built as an a/c that has been shot down and made a wheels up landing. The decal sheet has yellowed slightly over the years but is otherwise intact and I will use some of those emblems on my 1/48 scale Luft'46 projects.

Matrixone

[Sentinel Chicken]

Out of curiousity, were the efforts listed above the first concerted efforts at low-visibility camouflage in the air combat arena- we're so used to seing various pale gray schemes for modern jets it's easy to overlook that there some attempts during the Second World War if not earlier.  

[matrixone]

Sentinel Chicken,

The German colors RLM 74, 75, and 76 (shades of gray) were used to provide good air to air camouflage and worked quite well until the Germans started to suffer Allied fighter-bomber attacks late in the war on their own bases in Germany.
Thats when the RLM came out with the full defensive colors of 83(dark brownish green) 82(grass green) and 81(brownviolett).
The 83 color was seen on production aircraft in the fall of 1944 and was to replace the color 74, many German fighters had the 75/83 uppersurfaces until the end of the war. RLM 81/82 was seen on most German jets and rocket fighters and some prop fighters such as the Fw 190D-9 and Ta 152H, some Bf 109s and Fw 190s also had 81/82 uppersurfaces but 75 remained in the production cycle until the end of the war so combinations of 75/83, 75/82, or 75/81 were used for uppersurface camouflage colors.
Undersurfaces were mostly RLM 76 but a second color was seen on a number of different aircraft very late in the war, a greenish blue color. This color was at first thought to be a bad batch of RLM 76 paint but its use was so widespread that it has been determined that it was an intentional color, it has been reported that the greenish blue color worked just as well as 76 for an undersurface camouflage color but also worked well with the late war 81/82/83 colors in providing good camouflage while the a/c was on the ground or flying at low altitudes.

The Allies also used a blue color for their recon a/c and it was very successful in providing camouflage against the sky at high altitudes. I think it was a medium matt blue color called haze blue.

The haze blue and mid-war RLM German colors have been copied and used by modern day airforces such as the USAF and RAF.

Matrixone

[Allan]

Thanks for the kind comments, blokes, it'll be finished in a day or two.

I've already put on the prop boss and undercarriage covers. I'm working on the canopy now, the clear vision one.

For my next project I think I'll do a 1/72 Fw 190 in Marseille's markings with the dividing line of blue and desert sand on the fuselage sides.

But I'll pretend he settled down and so will give his plane some leader's chevrons.

But, and here's the good part, he still had affection for his ol yellow 14, so I'll put a small yellow 14 decal somewhere on the plane.

But where? Under the cockpit sill or maybe between the cheveons and the fuselage crosses.

Allan in Canberra

[AeroplaneDriver]

Evedry time I come back to check on this thread (or any of Allan's projects for that matter) I'm struck that a man who takes all his modelling pictures in the pub has truly grasped the point of scale modelling.