Scale aviation modeller international

PAINT AND DECALS

Revell has two decal options in this

kit but, as I have already mentioned,

I did not get the pages that covered

the colour schemes. I therefore

turned to the great oracle that is the

internet and discovered that one of

the schemes was for NE429, P6-S,

of 489 Squadron RNZAF in July

1944. This Beaufighter is finished
      in dark sea grey over sky, with a
      complete set of invasion stripes.
      I used Humbrol enamels
      throughout and went for heavy
      pre-shading, as contemporary
      photographs of these aeroplanes
      show a very heavily weathered
      and patchy finish.
      The invasion stripes were
      painted first, then after they
      were masked off I applied the
      camouflage colours. The decals
      went on perfectly over a coat of
      Humbrol’s Clear acrylic varnish.
      I decided to add some
      weathering, starting with the
      panel lines, which received a
      wash of raw umber oil paint. I

used the same wash to create

various oil and dirt streaks. Once

the painting and weathering was

finished a matt coat of Xtracolor

matt varnish was applied overall.

I had produced some

homemade masks to cover the

clear areas, which were now

removed before the aerial mast,

pitot tube, and torpedo were

attached to complete my rather

war weary-looking Beaufighter.

CONCLUSION

Revell has produced a rather

impressive model. The level of

detail allows for an excellent

out-of-the-box build for any new

or inexperienced modeller. For

someone wanting to go to town and

detail the model to the nth degree,

this is the perfect basis to start with.

I appreciate that I built a pre-

production test shot, and some

of the fit issues I experienced

may be rectified in the actual

production kits, but even so there

is nothing that would totally

flummox even the novice builder.

I really cannot recommend this kit

highly enough; it is a very impressive

model of the ubiquitous Beaufighter.

Hopefully, by the time you read

this the full production kit will be

available from Revell’s large number

of stockists across the world, and

I thank Revell for giving me the

chance to build this test shot.

The fuselage painted dark sea

grey with full D-Day stripes.

The pre-shading helps to give

a faded, patchy finish

The underside

painted in sky reveals

the pre-shading

12 • NOVEMBER 2018 • SCALE AVIATION MODELLER INTERNATIONAL

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