azureglo

A little honey, and a finefinish bearing in mind the gazillion not quite fitting parts. I've opted for the dead simple Tamiya one after opening the box of the Eddy and laughing hysterically just at the engine bay..

Well I've stuck it on for £50 as my last 1/72 went for £45. TBH As this was just a trial run and the kit was a freebie I'll be happy at that. That said the gruesome Hobbymaster ones go for big bucks so lets see. BTW thanks for the compliment, its worth something from a skilled builder like yourself. A

All done and in the RFI, man this was a nice kit to work on: It's now my go to for all commission 109E builds. Can't recommend it enough, already started its FW190A3 cousin for a customer. Cheers Muttley, so much easier than 1/72, I can see a lot of my 1/72 stash being converted to tokens for some more of these. So it's a hiatus from build threads for a little while as I have a commissions backlog to get through and posting, taking pix etc takes a fair bit of time. will be posting regularly in the galleries though with any notables. Cheers and thanks for looking in Anil

Lovely kit and easy build. This one's a dry run for a batch of 109 BoB commissions upcoming, apart from annoying fiddling with head armor to close canopy and devise a convincing wheels up option, an absolute joy of a kit to build, Paint was Mr Color as usual. My first 1/48 but I think I'll be focussing on this scale, less effort for things like multi glass gun sights, scale light bulbs, hollow pitots and about the same physical hours as a 1/72 plus the acknowledged benefit of less destruction of the eyesight. Feeling a lot better about my build rate, 4 on BRXM and 2 commissions in May, nice but could do with some improvement... WIP Beauty shots Thanks for looking in, Anil

Decals on and drying. I tried using some of the delicately printed Print Scale stencils which when they worked was great. Being ultra thin (no doubt to snuggle down in to panel lines) at least half of them folded over immediately- no big deal as I used some of the Tamiya ones which worked surprisingly well with a 25/75 Future/water mix. Wing walks were sprayed as the virtually every 109 I see has these with a beautiful silvered decal film effect..mine are a touch skinny at 0.5 mm but its a case of less is more. Matt coating tomorrow and as I have cheap listing for a week, time to get this ready for a new home, nice kit and looks suitably brutish in this camo. Got a few orders in for other camo so pleased this one is hummingly smoothly. I do like subtle mottling though as its harder to achieve and gets a significant premium at sale if you can pull off 0.5-1mm sprayed mottles but this one is going toward a bit more accuracy then is normal for me as a trial for the commision builds. Anil

Lovely result from a horrible little kit.

Mottling done: Went a bit trigger happy with the RLM71, the odd flourish and swirl as the real fitters would have probably done; Masked up main Balkenkreusz': Could have gone more off white and lighter black, tried contrast post shading inside the black with RLM 66, subtle buts its there. A few touch ups but beats the pants off decals and voodoo chemicals. Just a gloss coat for the gazillion stencils next- using the nice ones printed by Cartograf for a Skymodels sheet, the Tamiya ones look thicker then the vinyl I use for masking... Toodle pip, folks. Anil

The lovely but dubiously fitting Revell Germany kit. This was a test for a series as a few buyers have expressed an interest in Luft '46,. Did a production version with metal wings and shiny NMF paint job- new stuff was Mr Color Super Metallic Super Fine Silver. It's as good as Alclad but not as robust but good to have for when the powers that be finally ban the noxious Alclad. Little daft touches wire 0.2mm clear bulbs made out of clear sprue for the nav lights as an experiment: If you are not capable of picking up and positioning a single human hair this is not for you. Did some real world touches such as steel exhaust panels lightly dusted with eyeshadow exhaust residue. Sadly there a few paint blemishes on this one that means its not good enough for sale so a rare addition to my sparse display cabinet. Already pulled another out of the build pile pile and started it as I think this will be a winner on the auction sites. WIP here Cheers Anil

All done and in the gallery: Did a slightly unhinged test on making quick nav lights: Stretched clear sprue to 0.3mm, dipped in tamiya clears, drilled out receiving hole and then inserted and glazed . Surprisingly quick and effective but really for 1/48. Thanks @Jessie_C, you're absolutely right this is the stuff I think makes a model and the buyers love the attention to detail. RFI here As mentioned on the RFI there were a few paint blemishes so its replacement is on the bench, it was excellent fun and looks stunning so one is definitely heading to market. If you've got one, it well worth building for the wow factor but do it wheels up, it truly looks horrible gear down. Anil

It turns out Mies Van Der Rohe was wrong: god is not in the details as he tells us , god is in the decals.. Kits decals used plus Xtradecal swastikas and black pin striping for the tail band. Sitting under a coat of Mr Color GX112 gloss for final assembly tomorrow. Thanks for the kind words. Anil

Can't argue with that, apart from canopy not closing with head armour, it's a masterclass in tool making, everything clicks together even after paint and primer. I can see a lot more of these in my commissions pile. RLM02 with pre-shade , took a bit of effort to get this suitably weary looking, much thinning and wafting on of mist coats. The RLM 02 on the port wing near the fuselage needs beefing up but thats an easy fix, that mottling spraying the main markings tomorrow. Popped on the nose cowl and red tail to see how it looks, this is going be another colourful little plane.

A minor update, was distracted by guitar stuff but sprayed the main crosses and a simplified walkway demarcation. Might pop on decals tonight depending on single malt consumption.

@Peter Marshall I admire your work but your desk does things to my OCD I cannot even begin to describe...I have to go and line up all my tweezers so they are parallel now.

Thanks guys, it's nice to do a shiny one sometimes, no panel line washes, oil dotting etc, just a nice clean airplane. That said I will add some exhaust trails. A

Just for fun picked out contrast panels in Alclad aluminum that appears to be a lot less shiny than the Mr Color Super Fine Silver, perfect for what I intended, after all it would still be aluminium but a just different batch/supplier. Alclad steel for the exhaust panels, it's too early for titanium I guess. Also took the exhaust panels over the tail band as would be logical, no one wants to see burnt paint. Lovely looking thing, I'll be sorry to see this one go. Tomorrow for the sprayed Balkenkreusz and decalling and should wrap on this weekend. Anil