Painting parts before assembly; some common sense advice.

When I am building larger scale Airplanes and Jets it is often desirable to paint large areas such as the main feusalage, wing assemblies and nacell pods, once they have been assembled. In the case of patterns of camoflague, I usually wait until the entire plane has been pieced together so the "Flow" or continuity of the pattern is not compramised. Although I have suprised myself a couple of times by eyeing up the lines start and end points on a particular piece before installing it, there can be slight irregularities in the final appearance, as if something is a bit off, and can spoil an otherwise flawless design.

One of the best reasons for waiting till the end to paint larger sub assemblies is that the final prep is usually complete, and no touching-up along seams or gaps is necessary. Although often unavoidable, re-painting joins, pattern transformations, or glue damaged paint is more likely to cause uneven color, noticable transitions and even sloppy looking finishes.

Nothing freaks me out more than having to clean up, re-mask and paint a section of an otherwise successful paint detail job, *Especially if you have to re-mix the color you used before! Ahead of  re-painting an area, allways check instruction sheet for decal placement as you may get lucky and not have to fix the area if it's covered. Depending on your style and attention to detail, weathering and age spots can often help mask imperfections, a good thing for the less experienced modeler to remember.They also add to realism. Exhaust coloring, canon flash soot,  tire rubber residue and oil staining are some examples.

No Brainer tip #1
*Whenever I mix paint for a project, I usually figure out how much I will need and double the recipe. This has saved my tail on more than one occassion, and the use of extra paint (= extra $) is worth far more than the price of a new bottle if you mess up and need more.

My First Review on this Blog, plus a bit of boring background info.....

Hi All and anybody,

Welcome to the 1st installation of this, my Blog chronicling the building, detailing, and finishing of various Aircraft Models I am building. I mainly work with 1/72 scale kits, due largely to workshop and display restrictions. This rule is NOT universal; however and sometimes build larger scales, often due to availability. I HAVE been used to working with models of hard to find, or interesting aircraft of the WWII and Korean era, certainly early jets and experimental designs, as well as more established designs that could be considered Classic! I thought I should say that just ahead of telling you what I've chosen for my first build to review here!

The first build I am posting is a fairly small aircraft and, one might think, not too detailed, easy build, no problems! Well I thought so too, but was going to find out just how wrong I was!

While on a recent trip I found myself, as I often do, browsing and exploring comic shops and hobby stores, satisfying one or both of my two pastimes, Collecting comics and building models. I came across this 1:72 scale model of a Fokker DR.I by RODEN, a company out of Kiev in Ukraine. I couldn't NOT buy it!!

With my curiosity brimming, I was pleased to open the box to a tidy "little" reproduction of one of the most iconic and recognisable airplanes of the First World War, That being the trademark red tri-plane flown by German Flying Ace, Manfred von Ritchthofen... better known as the "Red Baron"!

The RODEN, 1:72  Fokker Dr.I kit comes in this 8"X4.5" box

which has an amazing painting of it in a dogfight with an

RAF Sopwith Camel Biplane, clearly getting the better, and

a photo of a young von Richthofen, although other pilots'

designs are shown and the proper decals included.

The detail is immediately evident when the sprues are removed from the box. Although it's a 1:72 scale, I was surprised to see how small an aircraft this actually was, especially when 1:72 is my main hobby choice! Compared to similar weapons, i.e. single seat fighter / support aircraft, it is minute! Even compared to its contemporary piers, the Triplane is dwarfed by the Camel and even the Hannover Cl. 111a! The narrower stance of the triplane gave it an advantage in more diverse take off and landing sites, and storage facilities, but the tall silhouette at times betrayed its humble attempts at camouflage!

This is my first attempt at "Streaky Camo", one of

the many interesting patterns employed by the Germans

to fool any predators seeking them out! This is so primitive

and simple, I quite like the effect!

There are many opinions about this pattern of camo, and volumes have been written on this pattern alone! The two main schools are roughly as follows;

1) The original paint was Green and due to the small number of samples remaining, it's hard to tell how much the samples have changed color over the years due to simple breaking down of the pigments.

2) The original Color was more of a Brown and the reason it appears green is due to the breaking down of some of the pigments, leaving us with the more commonly accepted Green tint we see today.

Much has been written, debated, and argued on this very subject, and I will include links to some of the more interesting articles! For me, I like the Green examples of the "Streaky" pattern, and will continue to use it for continuity of my collection. You may read and judge what's right for you!

I laid down a fairly smooth and consistent layer of the Light Ivory (Model Master Enamel 2709) and let it set overnight. This wasn't the original base color of the covering fabric, but would give me the most authentic looking result, considering the photos I used for reference. I then laid down streaks of Testors Flat Olive (1165CA) using a #2 flat brush and working top to bottom on the fuselage with straight parallel brush strokes that didn't overlap. I then used a #10/0 round detail brush with Humbrol #105 Matt Med Green to highlight areas where the Ivory and Olive Green actually met, as if there was an occasional opaque transitional area of green due to paint depletion on part of the brush. I hope this is clear, I’m just trying to describe the effect as best as possible!

As I’ve read elsewhere, some people like to apply the green coat while the base color is still fresh, allowing the two colors to bleed into each other, thus creating a similar effect where the base and olive combine to make a second lighter green color appear. Either way I strongly suggest practising these techniques on a scrap piece of plastic or a sacrificial old model you weren’t happy with, until you are happy with the results.