Weekend of Modelling

My partner and son went back to Sussex on Thursday this week, which meant that I had some free time , in between work and heading down to Sussex in the early hours of Sunday morning.  This could only mean one thing, time for some modelling!

As can be seen from my last post I have quite a few models on the bench at the moment, plus many more on the shelf of doom, more on that later.

This weekend I had two main goals;

1. Finish the Hurricane
2. Paint the Tomcat

It is safe to say I did not complete either task, although I did come close!

First up we will have a look at the Hurricane......

All the decals have been added and they have settled down very nicely with the help of Airfix's Decal Fix.  Next I decided to use Tamiya's flat base and then disaster struck.  For some reason the flat base fogged the entire model.  What to do? I tried a coat of Klear which had no effect so next I tried to remove the Klear and Tamiya flat base with a cotton bud soaked in Tamiya thinner.  Slowly and painfully the fogging was removed.  Panic over I decided it was time to weather the model.  I wanted to give the model a war weary look but not going overboard.  To do this I used three different elements;

1. Black oil paint
2. Vallejo weathering powders
3. Tamiya weathering pigments

The black oil paint was applied to the panel lines and left to dry.  Usually I would do this on a gloss surface but recently I have been experimenting on a matt surface which acts almost like a post shade and gives a pleasing result for a  worn looking aircraft.

Next step was to use non thinned black oil paint in little dots and dragged back with a brush to create oil stains and leaks on the underside.

Black Vallejo weathering powders was used to create the gunpowder staining on the wings and a little light sienna was used on the tires to make them look a little dusty.

Finally the exhaust staining was created with Tamiya weathering pigments applied with a stiff brush.

All that is left is to give the model a flat coat to seal and protect the weathering and then to attach all the small parts. 

The F-14 has had it's three grey colours added and the black squadron marking applied.  In the end, for ease of cleaning, I used Vallejo and Tamiya acrylics thinned with Tamiya thinners and I was pleasantly surprised at how well they sprayed.

Just some detail painting to be done and the model will be ready for gloss and decals!

More soon 

Andrew