Great Air War

[ZeroTwentythree]

Working from Wingnut Wing's Humbrol base for their Pup (if anybody knows, it'll be them - they've got real ones to play with!), I came up with these Vallejo colours for British WWI aircraft.  There's not a lot of choice for paint schemes.  (NIVO's a whole other can o' worms!)

PC10 Early (top of wings, fuselage) - 887 Brown Violet (V#124)
PC10 Late (top of wings, fuselage) - 872 Chocolate Brown (V#149) (I think this is the original Airfix selection)
Battleship Grey (usually cowling panels) - 973 Light Sea Grey (V#108)

Here's where it gets a bit 'you pays yer money, you makes yer choice'.  The first colour is Wingnut's recommendation but I think it'll prove too dark for 1/72.  It may be fine for their 1/32 kits but I haven't got that far yet on mine!

CDL (Clear Doped Linen) (undersides; sometimes overall) - 819 Iraqi Sand (V#124)

Going way back to Humbrol's discontinued line of WWI paints, I came across a second Vallejo variant that might work better in the smaller scales.  It certainly looks closer in their paint chart.

CDL (Clear Doped Linen) - 858 Ice Yellow (V#13)

Thanks. I think I've got #872, so I may try painting that over the other color. The color on the Airfix kit (and box) is lighter, it's not the PC10 color. But it still looks wrong, and I prefer the darker color that's on most of the profiles I've seen.

Based on that chart I linked to, I tried the Ice Yellow, but it really seems a bit too yellow for CDL.


Thanks for you advice. I will be doing some touch-ups and maybe re-posting some pics.

(I have to go back to work on my 1/32 Gotha! What a monster!)

1/32?!? 

At some point I'd like to do it in 1/72. But only after I've improved a bit. (And then, after that, there's the Roden Zeppelin-Staaken model...)  But that's a long way off for me.

[ZeroTwentythree]

A bit of poking around led me to these:

http://ww1aircraftmodelling.blogspot.com/2009/05/pc-10-definitive-version.html

http://www.theaerodrome.com/forum/other-wwi-aviation/2689-pc-10-formula.html

http://media.photobucket.com/image/recent/Brian_144/RGB%2520Color%2520Grids/BritishColorsWWI.jpg

Since I paint in the more "traditional" sense, I've got plenty of ochre, lamp black and burnt sienna around. Maybe I will try mixing (plus thinning and adding some matte medium) some paints up in a small, seal-able container.

[archangel1]

Here's a link to Wingnut's Pup instruction sheet that you can download.  Maybe it'll give you some ideas.

http://www.wingnutwings.com/ww/807D9A66D30505DDD9B1B657DB64753B

Check out the rest of the site too.  There are lots of colour photos of the flying replicas down in NZ, many of which belong to Peter Jackson.  Some good shots of CDL in there.

The Gotha's only got a 29'' span.  No big deal.  

I've got a 1/72 vacuform Staaken but don't have the Roden one yet.  Every time it goes on sale, it's the version I don't want!

[ZeroTwentythree]

Managed to fix the nut location on the Fokker, and I also repainted the top fuselage and wings on the Pup with a darker brown that looks much better. I didn't have the "Chocolate Brown" but I have the very similar (and slightly more neutral, from the look of the Vallejo color chart) "Leather Brown."

Didn't have time to take pics, but I'm hoping to spend at least a little bit of time at the stoodio this weekend, in which case I will spend some of that time on planes. Next on the agenda is to look at rigging the Albatross and finishing the assembly on Lothar's DR.1.

[ZeroTwentythree]

I actually did this earlier in the week, but haven't had time to take a photo. My weekend was more or less shot, so no work on anything. I'm lucky to get time to post this brief update.

[ZeroTwentythree]

My book (per Captain Brown's recommendation on Warseer) arrived today. Condition on Amazon was advertised as "Very Good" but the book that arrived was in virtually new condition. The spine hasn't even been bent. Bonus!



I looked up the illustrator (Bob Pearson) because the name sounded familiar. Found his web page with a CD of color illustrations for sale. Might look into purchasing that at some point.

http://www.cbrnp.com/RNP/CDv2/index.htm

I have also been following the blog (and referencing the web page) of W. I. Boucher.

http://wwiaviation.blogspot.com/
http://www.wwiaviation.com/

[archangel1]

Have you checked Mark Miller's site? His work is astounding, particularly the cutaways, but I don't think it's been really updated for a while.

http://www.wwi-models.org/Images/Miller/index.html

[ZeroTwentythree]

Have you checked Mark Miller's site? His work is astounding, particularly the cutaways, but I don't think it's been really updated for a while.

http://www.wwi-models.org/Images/Miller/index.html

Very cool, I like the renderings & profiles. Thanks!



I've finished assembling the Eduard Fokker DR.1 for a friend. From a distance it doesn't look so different from the Airfix DR.1. But the quality of the kit is far better, both in terms of detail and assembly. The only snag was that one of the struts was broken on the sprue. I believe I managed to repair it, though.




I have also started assembling a Revell Sopwith Triplane for myself. It's wretched.Worse than the Airfix models (so far) to a similar degree that the Eduard model is better. I have a couple more Revell waiting to be built -- I hope they're not all like this.

[ZeroTwentythree]

Here's a shot of everything I've got done so far. Since the last entry, I assembled the Revell S.E.5a, which looks great and went together very quickly and painlessly - a big difference from the Tripe.

Note, the DR.1 on the "ground" is the Eduard model I'm working on for a friend, not mine. Earlier this week I picked up some "music wire" from the local hobby store. It's a little finer than the wire I used on the Pup. I'm going to try it out on the minimal rigging on the DR.1.

[abhorsen950]

Thanks for bringing those rules to my attention! I really need to get into air wargames and these I might just have to use. Splendid models to! Keep it up

[ZeroTwentythree]

Back from the (almost) dead...


I've moved into the new house, and between moving, work and our almost 1 year old (already?!?!) daughter, I haven't had a chance to completely unpack my painting/work area. I've been itching to paint, but sick of digging through boxes trying to find the remainder of my painting supplies. But most of the modeling stuff is ready. So I've taken a few late night breaks from everything this week, and started putting together a few more planes.

Initially, my thought was to even out the Allies/Central ratio -- so I wanted to put another Central plane together. After far too much deliberation, I decided on a Roden Pfalz D.III, mainly on the weight of it being almost as sexy looking a plane as the Albatross D.V. Unfortunately the Roden kit is not quite up to "the sexy." It's got a ton of flash, is very delicate, and the kit doesn't seem to be broken into components in the most ideal way. The whole back portion of the fusilage actually sheered off at one point. I think I've got that repaired pretty well, but the front portion has horrible seams, even after trying to file, sand and putty it all together.



At some point I just got frustrated and started working on an old Airfix SPAD XIII. What a difference. It's a very nice kit, easilly as detailed as the Roden kit, but without all the flash, fragility, and awkward assembly. The only down side to this particlar kit is that it was an opened second hand kit in a bag, and was missing one of the wheel covers. Not a huge losss, I've left them both off and will just try to fill & sand the wheel where the axle shows through (I already trimmed it back priorto assembly. The other negative -- and this is 99% my fault -- is that the horizontal stabilizer isn't level. I missed this in the dry fit, and even after a bit of knife & solvent work (and thinking I had it fixed!) it rebounded back into its incorrect possition.



One other thing I've done is to assemble a custom kit-bashed resin designer toy combined with some spare plane parts (another SPAD) and other bits. The bonus is that this gave me a chance to try out "music wire" for the rigging, rather than the other types of wire I had been using. I'm completely converted. The music wire has a fine memory and snaps back into place very well. Very easy to work with, too. No more saging or bent lines!





After doing the rigging on this toy and discovering the joy of "music wire" I will be going back and rigging the previously assembled planes that had planned painting while ignoring the rigging as too much fidley detail.

[Dave Knight]

Great that your project is getting going again - can't wait to see more

I know when some of the guys at our local club did this a few years ago they had some probelems with kits not having pilots.  They found a good source in Reiver Castings.

Keep up the good work

[Steve F]

That flying dog looks great already - keep us updated, please.

[ZeroTwentythree]

I know when some of the guys at our local club did this a few years ago they had some probelems with kits not having pilots.  They found a good source in Reiver Castings.

I've already run into that, as the Pfalz doesn't have a pilot. I'm thinking about tracking down this kit: http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/Review.aspx?id=539 to solve the pilot issue.

[Dave Knight]

There is certainly a good selection there.  The River figures are metal, which may be a disadvantage, but come without bases which may be in their favour.