Military Illustrated Modeller - September 2019
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ÌiÀÊUÊ ÌÊ °ÊÎÓää{COCKPIT CONSTRUCTION AND PAINTING
Getting started on the cockpit, I made new seat
belts and an ammo bag from softer metal than
the photo-etched parts supplied in the kit. For the
seat belts, I placed the pe parts on a hard surface,
laid thin lead sheet over them and thumped down
gently with a hammer to press a pattern into the
soft lead. After cutting out the shape of the seat
belts (and the rear-gunner’s sling seat), I drilled out
the appropriate holes and added any photo-etched
detail like fasteners and buckles. The rear gunner’s
ammo bag was made from soft metal from a wine
bottle and styrene strip.
The cockpit floor had knockout marks that I
filled with styrene plugs made with a punch and
die set. The floor, cockpit frame and instrument
panel were painted Tamiya acrylic XF- 57 Buff,
gloss coated with X-22, then Ochre and Burnt
Sienna oil paints thinned with mineral spirit
were used to give a wood-grain appearance by
smearing them over the surface.
The rigging and control cables for the cockpit
was completed using EZ-Line. The ends of the line
we’re cemented in place with cyano glue, then
thick Vallejo 70.801 brass paint was blobbed into
place to emulate the look of fasteners.
I thinned down the plastic from the back of
the pilot’s wicker seat with careful scraping to
enhance the detail, then painted it tan with a
leather brown upper pad and black seat cushion.
The interior of the fuselage walls was painted
Tamiya XF-55 Deck Tan. Various details were
picked out with Vallejo black 70.950. The hand
pump located in front of the pilot was airbrushed
with Alclad Polished Brass ALC 109.
The Rolls-Royce Falcon engine was detailed with
thin copper wire for the ignition wires. The engine
body was airbrushed with Alclad Duraluminium,
and the cylinders were Tamiya XF-1 flat black.
Alclad’s Polished Brass was used for the other
appropriate details, and I used Testor enamel 1151
Copper for any of the model’s parts where this
colour was called for. After all the paintwork had
dried, I added a coat of X22 clear gloss to protect
the paint and gave the whole thing a wash of raw
umber and black Winsor & Newton oil paints
thinned with mineral spirit.COOPER BOMBS
I typically don’t add ordinance to my models but
the version I picked from the instruction sheet had
them illustrated. References on the 20lb Cooper
bombs showed them to have a small five-bladed
spinner at the front end. I emulated this using some
etched metal wing nuts. Although they only ended
up having four blades, they still looked the part.EXTERIOR PAINTING
To give the impression of the frame of the aircraft
showing through the underside of the wing
surfaces, I airbrushed lines of Tamiya XF-10 Flat
Brown onto the bottom of the flying surfaces. I then
masked along the framework using thin strips of
Tamiya masking tape. I also added lines along
where the wing spars would be.
Mixing a light cream colour of Tamiya acrylic
XF-59 Desert Yellow and XF-57 Buff, I base coated
the entire exterior of the model, including the
topside. This colour would be for Clear Doped
Linen, or CDL. During this process, the wing spar
masks were removed, and then lightly sprayed
over, before removing the rest of the lower masking
strips. To finish the process, the rest of the brownCockpit components and rigged frame ready for assemblySmaller components were weathered using oil
paint washes and dry-brushing with metalizer.The instrument panel
was given a wood
grain finish with oil
paints before detailing
with the kit decals.