Hasegawa Dewoitine D.520 - Part II

After a long period of silence, it's time to post the progress report for Dewoitine D.520. In simple terms, it's done. Finished kit can be seen below.

Couple of words about paints used in this project. All paints are Lifecolor acrylics. Lower surfaces were painted with UA026 Light Compas Ghost Grey (FS36375). Base color for upper surfaces is UA094 Medium Sea Grey (FS36270), while camouflage was done with UA143 French Brown (FS30045) and UA142 French Khaki (FS34096). The blue for the cockpit is a personal mix and should be regarded as 'artistic freedom', since I was unable to find good reference pictures or a paint specifically for french cockpit blue. One thing is for sure though - the grey color specified by Hasegawa as interior color used by the French in 1940 is almost certainly incorrect.

But what about the kit itself? Well, it was one of the most basic kits I've put together since getting back to the hobby. The fit is very good, number of parts is very reasonable, panel engravings are subtle, decals are basic (no stencils), but very nice to work with, cockpit parts are clear and detailed. Overall, a straightforward build without any real challenges, In fact, I'd say that it's a perfect beginner's kit.
 

Hasegawa Dewoitine D.520 - Part I

Switching back to 1/72 and actually to my intended focus for my slowly growing model collection - airplanes of early World War II. This time around I've decided to give some attention to what I believe is a quite neglected topic - French Airforce of early war years.

I happen to have what I feel is a perfect starting point for this particular subsection of airforce history - a double pack of Dewoitine D.520 and Morane Saolnier M.S.406 from Hasegawa. For no particular reason I picked the Dewoitine first.

Couple of words about Hasegawa - never worked with their kits before, but I'm somewhat familiar with company's reputation and its prices. To be honest, nothing I've seen in this particular box did initially strike me as overly 'exclusive'. The Dewoitine is surely nicely sculpted, there is no flash and panel lines are very subtle, but overall the kit is neither better or worse than latest offerings from Airfix. At the same time it has to be admitted that while this particular kit is very simple, the precision of moulding is excellent. The assembly was absolutely problem-free and I hardly needed to use any filler during the construction phase.

I wish I could say the same about the painting phase or rather my new Iwata Neo I used for the very first time. My 'regular' airbrush - Badger 150 with 0.5mm needle - is a very forgiving beast. The Neo, not so much. It is a very fussy animal indeed - the paint must be diluted just so or it will act up on every opportunity, either clogging or spitting. This behavior is the reason for rather horrid effort at preshading, as can be witnessed in pictures below.

Revell Stug 40 Ausf. G - Part II

This one is gonna be short and sweet - the Stug is finished and here's how it turned out. This time around I've decided to really push things to the limit with the weathering and threw everything I had at this poor little kit.

First off, couple of enamel washes from AK Interactive and MiG. A slightly frustrating experience, I have to say - in instruction videos the washes always distribute themselves in nice layers, but not so for me. Instead, the pigments pooled together and insisted on creating those ugly watermark lines. Not sure really why, as the kit was properly varnished with gloss before I applied the washes. Guess further experiments are required.

Once the washes settled, it was time for chipping and streaks. The thing with realistic chipping seems to be one part delicate work with tiny brush and one part of correct location selection. Hard edges, hinges, surfaces exposed to wear and tear - chipping seems to work fine on all of them, as long as it's not overdove. As for the streaks, any flat area works just fine.

Last, but not least, it was the turn for the rust effects. In this particular kit I decided to give shürtzen holders extra attention and slobbered  rust paint and pigments all over their upper parts.

Pretty happy with the final result.

Revell Stug 40 Ausf. G - Part I

Been a long while since I've posted anything about my own projects and for a very good reason - there is only one and it moves with snail's pace. After the Spitfire I finished in August, I didn't have much time for modelling and then one thing came up and then another... Before the I knew it, it was start of October. Trying to revive some momentum, I pretty much picked up closest random model from the shelf and it happened to be another StugIII from Revell.

 Having a vague memory of previous build, I'm pretty sure that this Stug is basically the same kit as the one I've built couple of years ago. I also remembered the problems I was having with the tracks. So, this time around I decided to try something different than my usual 'routine' with tanks. Normally when working with armor, I assembly and paint chassis and superstructure separately, then join them together and tidy up the paint job before final steps of varnishing and weathering. As part of 'usual procedure', I also paint the wheels before gluing them in place.

Not this time though; remembering previous build and problems with correct track alignment as well as being curious about the fact that many modellers seem to complete the assembly of the the kit even before priming, I've decided to try doing it that way. Well, having tried that approach, I've got to admit that not having to handle partial paint jobs throughout the assembly process certainly does speed things up! Took me about six hours to have the kit syanding assembled on the table, with most of the time being spent on the track assembly.

The kit fits together superbly, there are no gaps or problems worth mentioning. However. be careful about the direction of the tracks as you glue them into place! Also, heads-up about a bit wierd issue - as it turns out the chassis and superstructure fit pretty good together in two 'positions' - one with front edge of superstructure overlapping the front edge of chassi and the other with superstucture's edge placed behind the front lip of chassis. The assembly instructions are pretty ambivalent about the correct alignment of those two major components and if you do it wrong, the entire backside of the model will simply not fit. OK, so what's the right alternative? The second one, with superstructure front end behind, leaving the front lip of chassis visible from above. Other than that, the assembly is so straight-forward that there really wasn't much point in posting any pictures from that stage of the build. Once the kit was assembled, it was primed in grey and preshaded with black. Not really a good idea actually, as the black undercoat is pretty harsh with German dunkelgelb as base color. Luckily, the disruptive pattern of diluted Olive Green mixed with a touch of white softened the harshness of the preshading. Next, the wood and metal details were painted and that's pretty much where I am right now. Next, gloss varnish and decals, followed by another shot at realistic weathering.

C4 Open 2014

Last week I had the great pleasure of visiting yet another installment of C4 Open, my local modelling exhibition. As always, there was a massive amount of wonderful kits, although I could also observe some rather worrying trends - number of dioramas was decreased noticeably when compared with last couple of years. Hopefully it's not an indication of things to come. Anyway, a bunch of pictures was taken by yours truly and is ready to be viewed in galleries below. Hope find them to your liking.

Arnhem vignette - Part II

A Sunday afternoon put to good use - basic layout of the Arnhem vignette is clobbered together. Shoddy worksmanship (on my part, that is), but considering my limited experience with diorama buildning and the fact that I am pretty much shooting of my hip in regard of the concept as well as the layout, it will have to do.

Arnhem vignette - Part I

And now, as they say over to something completely different. An online modelling group I belong to has announced a group build. The topic is operation Market Garden, due to the fact that the 70th aniversary of its start is just around the corner. To begin with, I intended to ignore it, but then I remembered that I have long, long time ago purchased  a 1/35 scale British Paras set from Dragon. It seemed like a good occasion to do something with it!

After a bit of pondering I decided to try making a little vignette with two of the miniatures. While I had a general idea of the concept and layout, I needed to know the size of the miniatures before starting the work on the vignette scenery. And so, here are the two minis in semi-assembled state. Left arms are not attached to make painting easier. Brass rods have been inserted in holes I bored out and will serve as holding pins during painting process and then be re-used to anchor the figures to the bases.