Good morning!
The braderie was a huge success. Fine weather, lots of people passing by... I'm quite happy with the weekend!
I managed to finish the Corsair on Sunday (technically today, because I painted the last navigation light just 15 minutes ago...). With the wings folded up, there's not much visible of the Corsair's iconic lines, but it makes for an interesting model. I did some final panel shading on the hinge side of the flaps & ailerons, using pigments from my dirt box. The radio wire was done with elastic wire, and a small drop of wood glue was applied and painted at the joining point of the two wires. Interestingly, the tail to radio compartment wire goes to the base of the antenna mast, not to the top...
The paint chipping was done with
Vallejo Ivory (to simulate the yellow primer), and
Ammo Silver on top of and in between the yellow chips.
This was concentrated somewhat on the wing roots, over the radiators. The heat of these would weaken the paint bond. It's also where mechanics would walk to refuel the plane and maintain the engine, so you'll see excessive wear in those places.
The chipping also mostly follows the panel and rivet lines.
I kept the chipping on the propeller light; mostly on the leading edge.
The supporting poles that hold the folded wing steady were painted
Steel first, then
Red, with chipping done here as well.
The wing folding mechanism is composed of several rods and pistons, plus a rubber (I think) hose leading from the wing tanks to the main tank and engine.
Moving to the underside, I weathered the bomb with some Earth and Light Metal drybrushing. The bomb tails were transported seperately and fixed just before a mission, so I kept them pretty clean. I used some black and dirtbox pigments to represent exhaust staining.
Overall, I'm quite happy with how it turned out. Apart from a few minor errors (and the impossibility to pose flaps as you want) I liked building the Magic Factory kit. I still have one left
in the shop, if you want to try it yourself.
No news on the Strv. I've re-primed some bits, painted more of the others, but overall, there's not much change from last week.
The Fairey Battle has seen a little bit of progress. I drybrushed the instrument panel to give it at least some definition, but it's so far back in the fuselage you'll hardly be able to see it.
The pilot and gunner were put in their place:
And the fuselage was closed up. Fit was decent, with just a bit of a gap at the front. This was puttied and sanded:
The wings also were put together. Top and bottom, with the ailerons sandwiched loose in between:
These needed some scraping and sanding to fit well, but they're now ready for attaching to the fuselage.
That's it for now!
See you next week!
One more thing: maybe you've seen this icon appear at the bottom of my website:
I spent about an hour last week getting the icon properly sized, lined up and linked and in doing so I learned a bit more about Liquid (Shopify's coding language) and CSS (basically the layout code for the entire internet), knowledge which I would not have acquired if I'd prompted an auto-complete engine...
You can click it, and it takes you to a page where I have written a short text about the use of "AI" in my business. It's something I feel quite strongly about, and as I see "AI" slop used more and more, I thought it was time to express my thoughts.
Take it as you will.
