Airfix Mitsubishi A6M2b Zero - Part III

With main components of the model having been assembled and primed, it was now time to have some fun with the airbrush. As usual, as the first step in painting process, I did my best to preshade the model by outlining all panel lines with black. As images below are showing, my control of the airbrush still leaves a lot to be desired, but the end result was adequate. I can also add that I find preshading to be excellent and stress-free airbrushing exercise - it doesn't really matter what mistakes I'll make, since everything will mostly be covered by other colors anyway.

Next, it was time to paint the yellow strips at the leading edges of the wings. Airfix provides the decals for those details, but it's very simple to paint them and then mask them of. The only suitable acrylic yellow I had available was Humbrol 154 and it was half-dry (damn it, Humbrol, one could almost suspect a conspiracy on your part here - first those annoying tin cans for your enamels and now plastic jars that can't keep paints in shape more than a couple of months after 'breaking the seal'). I managed to revitalize the stringy mass in the jar with some acrylic thinner, but at first the results weren't satisfactory. Nonetheless, wanting to proceed, I continued applying thin layers of paint and after a while I deemed the coverage to be adequate. I left the paint job to dry for a day before masking of the areas supposed to be yellow, allowing it to cure properly.

To be fair, I have to point out that yellow paints are in my opinion very frustrating to use in general, so maybe it's a bit harsh to blame Humbrol for 'low performance' of its 154 Insignia Yellow.

With yellow leading edge stripes masked off, it was now time for the 'main event'. I'm not sure if my reasoning was correct, but for this part of the project I've decided to use Tamiya's paints instead of Airfix's Humbrol recommendations. After all, Tamiya being a Japanese company should know what Japanese Navy Grey and Green looks like. Right?

Regardless of the correctness of my choice, I must say this - airbrushing with Tamiya's paints is pure joy. I have my now used acrylics from Humbrol, LifeColor and Vallejo Air and I was a bit amazed over the difference in behavior of Tamiya's paints. Perfect finish and great control over paint flow! For the first time I was able to retain the preshading effect and also adding the highlights without having to struggle. Furthermore, Tamiya's paints seem a bit tougher once dry. This characteristic unfortunately makes also cleaning of the airbrush into a bit of a challenge, but that's a small price to pay.

One of the advantages with airbrushing -
if you mess up,  you get a 'redo' since the paint layers are so thin.

Paint job of the aircraft body.

Airfix Mitsubishi A6M2b Zero - Part II

Alright, let's get on with the build then. First stage, is as always with airplane kits, the cockpit. In this respect, the Zero is a very nice surprise - while sparse in detail, it still manages to provide a very nice rendition of pilot's 'home away from home'.
I had a bit of a problem with selection of paint for the cockpit. Quick research session on the net told me that different paints were used by Mitsubishi and Nakajima, but the best info I could find about the color of the paint used by Mitsubishi was that it was almost identical with american Olive Drab. Considering the variety of 'Olive Drab', this tidbit of info was less than useful. In the end, I decided to use artistic license and loaded the airbrush with Vallejo Air Interior Green slightly lightened by Dark Yellow. Once the paint was dry, I applied a light oil wash to the recesses to bring out the detail.

Instrument panel is re-created with help of three decals. All of them fit pretty well. The main panel decal is slightly oversized, but nothing a dab of DecalSet can't fix.

Pretty decent detail of cockpit walls.

Cockpit itself after assembly and painting

Cockpit fits snugly into the fuselage, so putting it in and closing the fuselage was done without any problems. Fit between the fuselage and the wing section isn't as precise and one needs to be rather careful when putting those two sub-assemblies together. I didn't pay sufficient attention and had to do some filing and filling with putty to correct a rather visible misalignment between right wing and its wing root. I do however believe that this problem can be avoided with some dry-fitting and filing before the glue is brought into play.

All major components minus the engine section are in place.
Considerable amount of work went into fixing misalignment between
the fuselage and right wing. 

Airfix Mitsubishi A6M2b Zero - Part I

It's been awfully quiet here for a while, hasn't it? Well, let's change it and unpack one of those new Airfix Mitsubishi A6M2b Zeros. Quick review is enough to realize that it's yet another of those basic, but functional   kits that are bread and butter of Airfix.

Another thing worth observing is that Airfix seems to be getting better in getting the most out of their new molds. Cockpit has some pretty decent detailing, vertical tail control surface area is adjustable and perhaps most important - the depth and width of panel engravings seem just right.

Airfix Messerschmitt Bf110C-2/C-4 - Part V

Not really sure what I am more pleased about - the fact that I am finished with this model or the achievement of finally taking some pictures with decent exposure and colors. Anyway, here it is in all its decaled, slightly weathered and varnished glory.

The finishing part of the build consisted of a mud wash with dark brown wash from Flory Models. Must admit that the attraction of "the new thing" has faded a bit by now - sure, it's an excellent way to quickly shade panel lines, but as with all quick solutions, the end result can vary, depending on luck... or more specifically on imperfections in gloss varnish undercoat that is absolutely necessary to get the best result with this wash. Also, cleaning up the mud residue after its application can be a bit of a chore, especially on areas with lots of small bits sticking out. Clumsy as I am, I managed to break off two of the wheel covers during that stage.

Perhaps most importantly though, I had some difficulty controlling the wash on flat surfaces - with a paper cloth, it's rather difficult to create those subtle graduations of dirt residue. Perhaps it becomes easier with a bit of practice, but I think it's easier to create those effects with oil wash and a brush.

My struggle with pigments continues. On one hand I was very happy with the discolorations on the lower surfaces. On the other hand, I've once again failed to re-create the sot effects around the exhaust pipes - the Dullcoat varnish somehow managed to pool the pigment into a rather unseamly blob, impossible to remove and retouch. Oh well, there is always another model to practice on.

The model is quite simple to put together, but complex enough to give this beginner a bit of a challenge. That somewhat bothersome joint between fuselage and wing assembly was a valuable lesson in filing and dry-fitting. The most annoying moment of the project was without a doubt that ill-fitting sharkmouth decal - watch out for that one, because it can potentially mess things up beyond repair. Other than that, it was a fun build. In fact, I like this model so much that I intend to get another one and make the Eastern Front light bomber version.

Covering the shiny model in mud muck
can be somewhat disconcerting...

...but there is no need to worry,
the muck is easy to remove even two days after application.

Finished model

Airfix Messerschmitt Bf110C-2/C-4 - Part IV

One of the best things with those new releases from Airfix consists of those marvelous decals, but it sure is a bit of a chore to get them all from the sheet onto the model. In case of Me-110, a total of 90+ decals of varying sizes needs to be put in place. Also, the prominent shark-mouth decal for the nose of the model presented an unexpected challenge - the way it's formed, there is no chance in hell to make it conform to the fuselage. After about 40 minutes of immense frustration, I finally gave up trying to be precise, aligned the two parts of the decal the best I could, soaked them in MicroSol, crossed my fingers and left the model alone for a day. The alignment turned out to be less than perfect, but considering the difficulties I've experienced, I was more than happy with the end result. A word of warning though - don't even think about putting on that shark-mouth decal without having access to some sort of decal softener.

Another piece of advise -for work with those tiny stencils (some of them are below a millimeter in size) good light is absolutely essential while an optovisor is worth its weight in gold.

Topside looks excellent

Instantly recognizable lines and camouflage

Shark-mouth decal isn't perfectly centered... 

...but from the side it looks properly intimidating.

Airfix Messerschmitt Bf110C-2/C-4 - Part III

With most of construction phase completed, it was now time to have some fun with the airbrush. Notice the word "fun" - I am finally getting confident with airbrushing and even dared to do some freehand experimenting while doing the camouflage of upper surfaces. I figured it was as good opportunity as any to practice freehand painting and diffused edges. For a moment I even thought about trying to doing all of the camouflage without any masking, but I'm still not there yet. I am however happy to say that the airbrush is slowly becoming just another tool for me.

With painting of the airframe finished, the time came to perhaps the most difficult part of this model - assembly of the undercarriage. As I suspected after having a first glance at the instructions sheet, I wasn't able to get through this stage without some issues. The most serious of those occurred when I managed to dislodge entire undercarriage gondola while dryfitting one of the wheels. It was a potential deal-breaker, since the loose component was completely enclosed inside the gondola, making it impossible for me to re-glue it without ripping apart one of the wings. I finally resolved the issue by pulling the wheel housing into position with a bit of a blue-tack fastened on a stick. Once it was in place I was able to secure it in place with super-glue. A close call, to say the least.

Rest of the assembly was done relatively easily, although I have to say that the sequence suggested by instruction booklet (which I followed) is simply bonkers. According to the construction sequence suggested by Airfix, one is to put the wheel housing into place and then struggle with confined space and difficult access while putting together the undercarriage. It would be much easier to do the wheel assembly first and then put the entire sub-assembly into its enclosure. Note to self - never again accept the building sequence without investigating if there isn't a smarter way.

Getting experience with freehand airbrushing

Upper surfaces  painted -
the classic splinter pattern of Luftwaffe 

Belly side, painted in standard RLM65 Hellblau.
This time around I actually managed to preserve some of the preshading. :-)

The assembly of wheel carriage can just as well be done
before the wheel housing is enclosed into cramped wheel gondola

Airfix Messerschmitt Bf110C-2/C-4 - Part II

Work on Me-110 continues - I'm now done with most of construction phase and as far as I can see, Airfix managed to deliver to us another beauty. Unfortunately, there were some issues while putting this kit together. The main problem is the bad fit between the fuselage and the wings - the part of wing subsection that goes into the fuselage is simply too thick and requires a lot of work with sanding stick before getting an acceptable result. I've thinned it down by more than a millimeter and as can be seen in the pictures, that still wasn't quite enough. If I ever build this kit again (which in fact is quite probable, because it looks great and both alternatives for painting schemes and decals are very tempting), I will have to remember to thin down bottom plate of cockpit assembly to give the wing root section an additional bit of extra space.

It seems to me that if the bad fit between the fuselage and wing sub-assembly isn't properly taken care of, the next issue to deal with will be the gaps between upper wing surfaces and the fuselage. OK, not a dramatic problem - a bit of putty took instantly care of those gaps. However, it was still a bit of pain in the butt to deal with because there is a row of rivets just a fraction of a millimeter immediately by those gaps. Of course, no matter how careful you are, the putty will find its way into those engravings and additional time needs to be spent to clean up the mess. In other words, time spent on getting good fit between wings and fuselage will in the long run save you some time.

Putting the gun array into the nose is a bit fiddly. It's a very close fit, not much room to work in and those thin plastic components cannot be just forced in - if you'll get it wrong, you'll end up with bent or even worse, broken barrels. Make sure that there is no flash in the holes beforehand - even a tiny obstruction in one of the four openings can lead to a lot of frustration.

Airframe put together and primed.

The front edge of wing assembly still doesn't fit into the fuselage
despite substantial thinning down...

...which in turn results in problems with fit
between the wings and the fuselage.