Calum is forging ahead with his 1/48th scale Hawker Tempest Mk/V Series II kit. Today, he presents the camouflage, weathering and some homemade mask making techniques that we think has greatly improved on the model. See his progress in Part III of his guide...
Build Guide: Hawker Tempest Mk/V Series II
From Eduard Model Accessories
1/48th scale
Kit No #82122
Plastic Injection moulded kit
Six decal options from Cartograf
Photo-Etched parts
Painting mask included
Product Link on the Eduard Website
Previously in this series:
-Today, Part III - On to the painting and making the markings of the kit.
On to the painting. I know black basing is the current technique of choice but I like to keep the paint coats to a minimum, especially with all the fine detail on this kit. So I started with some random extra dark sea grey that will go under the medium sea grey
The first coat was decanted Tamiya AS11. I really like the Tamiya AS11 and AS10 for RAF colours. The paint goes down really well and dries fast.
Pretty much straight away I started on the weathering process using lighter and darker shades of grey sprayed through the RB airbrush splatter stencil and some ripped scotchbrite
I first roughly sprayed the sky fuselage band using Mr Colour Sky. The, for reasons unknown I decided to paint the stripes first. I scaled up the instructions and then used my Silhouette Portrait cutter to cut out five stripes. I applied these to the model to get the correct spacing. I then masked it out and sprayed the black (Gaianotes German grey) first (I prefer to paint white over black)
I then used pre-cut stripes to mask out the white. I used Mr Colour off white for the white
I had intended to use hard-edged camouflage on the Tempest as the images all appear to show a hard-edged pattern. But after a picture of Tempests in the factory was posted on the Barracuda Studios Ready Room Facebook group I decided to go with a slightly feathered edge. I scaled up the instructions and printed them out on card, then cut these out with scissors.
The card mask was attached to the model with white tact it off a bit. The advantage of the card over paper is it doesn’t bend under the air pressure from the airbrush. As an aside, the way the windscreen fits into the recess of the upper cockpit deck is a fantastic example of clever engineering.
I first sprayed the RAF dark green (Mr Color 361) in the rough pattern. Then I applied the cut-out cardboard masks, again held down by white tac.
Obviously, these fit well over the flat surfaces but the curves over the top of the fuselage sometimes needed a bit of white tac to join the mask up.
When you apply the grey ensure you apply it at right angles to the mask (as much as practical) that way you will get a nice tight edge but with a little feather. Weathering was applied over the green and grey with the RB airbrush splatter stencil and some ripped scotchbrite.
Because it was impossible to match the sky fuselage band colour with the sky used for the decal codes I’d decided to make masks for the codes and spray them.
I like to apply a wash prior to decaling and prior to a gloss coat. I do polish the surface with some wet 12000 micro-mesh cloth first. This adds a bit of grime to the surface
Once the oil is dry I wipe it off with a paper towel
Now to let everything dry before the gloss coating.
Next - to seal the rest of the kit up and add some extras - Stay tuned for more on this build over the next few weeks...
Calum Gibson
You can order this kit from the Eduard Store Directly - Thanks to Eduard for sending these to Calum to build.
