Tamiya 1/48 Bristol Beaufighter Part Two

 

There was some work cut out for us before we embarked on the project. Main goal is to mark out the rivets and the lines so that when we do started painting the model, it also served as individual panel boundaries.

The landing lights I used 2 Rhinestones to glue in place and the background was painted black to bring out the contrast, I liked it's high reflectivity, making it glitter! Wow factor, so this is one of those things that contributes to it.

I used my trusty Kolinsky Sable brush and dotted in the chips with Vallejo Air Chrome Silver. Concentrated on the gun magazines and human traffic areas. Care is taken not to overdo it and be carried away with excitement. LESS IS MORE. Once overdone, the model is cooked. This is a self reminder that is repeatedly rehearse within myself.

I used sienna oils diluted with Tamiya Enamel Thinners to glaze individual panels within the boundaries. Giving the model a little variations to hues. This was suggested to me by famous Taiwanese Model Maker Fan Cheng Bin. Effect disrupts the homogeneity giving the model a nice desert worn look.

  

 I gave the model localized soot spray with the airbrush, exhaust fumes, gun blast carbon build ups,  paint chips were also concentrated on the exit points of the barrels.

The exhaust fume trails were given an initial sand colour sprayed over the rear of the exhaust area and flared outwards. This is over-sprayed with a lower more acute angle with Hull Red. Next, even smaller area and acute angle was sprayed over with dark grey or black. Same is done with the cannot ports and the ejection points sans the  sand colour.

Undercarriage was weathered and glued in place. Some Raw Umber and black inks did a wonderful job of bringing out the details quite nicely.\

The canopies all had imperfect joint lines, so I filled these in with diluted Krystal Klear. Once they are dried and transparent, I used a little wash to remove the glossing tint that Krystal Klear leaves behind.

This photo reveals the glossiness of the joint lines on the clear parts. Which later, I used some washes to matte them out, so that it blends with the texture of surrounding areas.

The nose job required some streaking to make it blend with the rest of the aircraft, so, I used some Raw Umber to streak that area.

The tail sections was taken care of and care is taken not to overcrowd the open areas and leave somewhat some variations of the tones to make it look exciting. Focus is done to make sure the horizontal panels are receiving a lighter tone in the finished model than the vertical panels.

Finally, the tapes were removed to check on the transparent parts, since almost all spray painting is already done.

Tamiya 1/48 Bristol Beaufighter Part One

I had always had this kit sitting on the shelf for the longest time. I finally took it out and started to make it. After say about 7 years. The decals were shot to bits already.

I decided from the get go to do it with rivets. So I searched for few days online till I muster enough resources to start the process. I used Tamiya masking tape as a guide and worked myself through most of the rivets. To tell you I am 100% there is to tell you a lie. There are some that are left out either by design or by mistake. I started with the tail as the bodywork still required some work.  

Some patchwork is required on the fuselage halves, Nothing major, as this is Tamiya after all, not KittyHawk.

The wings did joined nicely to the bodywork and I took care not to press too hard and deform the plastics.

The overhead view of the body work almost done.

I did not forget the tail sections, even though the work is limited however, it does give me a guide as to painting and shading, making it an exciting project to behold.

For the spine antenna mask, I wanted to do something robust, Using the original part as a guide, I cut a piece of thin brass, I drilled a 0.5mm hole for the dipole anchor and clasped it in between two 0.3 polystyrene cards from Tamiya, leaving a long overhang of 4mm as an anchor. The hole is located over the bright light and drilled through with the 0.5mm bit. The mast boom was then sanded to form the aerodynamic shape of the original. I drilled 3 holes of 0.3mm next to each other and cut through with the craft knife to form the anchor slot. The brass end was slotted in and glued in place using CA glue and the top was given a few brush strokes of Tamiya Extra Thin to melt the plastics together.

As usual, I have the canopies masked and glued in place before starting my puttying.

The dark panels shades are given a coat of black. and parts of it were given white so as to provide a variable surface on the finished model.

The bottom was given the blue that I mixed up by eye, to a little brighter than the original as we are found of bruising it quite a bit later.

The top was a case of white and black shading. Thin strokes and large surfaces are coated. Highlights are especially important to parts that reflects the most light.

The bottom was masked off and got the model ready for the camouflage spraying on top.

The top side was treated with my own concoction of desert base coat. I do not use the actual colours as once we started to work oils on them, the colours are shot. I wanted a base to work on and after all the hues and shades we modulated on the surface and then glazed them to unify them, I would like the final plethora of colours in unison to look somewhat like the original hue and tone albeit with complex shades.

The yellow was masked off with tape and blue tack and the base colour of what will eventually be Khaki Drab or Tan is piled on using very thin coat so that we can see the original intention of the black and white patches and lines. Here we find the shades showing through the paint.

  

The roundels were a masked affair. So that its robust enough to stand up to the abuse of weathering. From left, Wide Tamiya tape is cut with a circular cutter with cross running through the middle to make sure that the circles later line up. Blue was used again, of my own conconction and then highlighted. Next is critical, the second ring was added but care must be taken to align the cross previous drawn properly so that it will be dead centre. Picture on the right show that I reinforced the masking around the edges of the roundel with extra tape to prevent leakage. The centre was coated with a flared intensity with white. This will later give the red hues with variable intensity so that it gives depth to the colour.

The reds done, two colours of red were used and once dried, the tapes were removed to reveal the roundel. Now the plane is ready for shading. I coated the model with Future and did the decals on the sides.

 

Masking is used to do colour modulation to the yellows and later to the browns. On the right, Raw umber oils were used to blend the colours together.

  

From the left, the modulated colours were marked over with raw umber, Once these are blended it displays uneven tones much to my liking as depicted in the middle picture. As the oils will dry lighter, I allowed 1.5 days for it to dry before having a look at the final hues. It appeared much lighter like the picture on the right. I decided to water down the Raw Umber and use it as a glaze in order to control the contrasts further.

After 3 coats of raw umber glazes, the contrast is somewhat muted. Two more glazes were later given to make it a little bit more unified with the rest, and the final overall hue looked like the original colour code given and I was very much pleased with it.

The overall balance of the colours were quite pleasing. Now that the browns are done, I then started to work on the yellows to bring the tones to the sand levels. And also to tone down on the highlights to create a muted contrast like I have done with the browns. Till we meet again next week with part 2, happy model making. Enjoy,