What's on my desk? Part 40.

Hello there. Autumn has definitely begun now. Tempratures are going down, rain and wind are coming back. Perfect modelling weather!

So, any progress on the workbench? Yes!

Let's start with the most annoying one: the ancient Tornado. I succeeded in assembling the landing gear. This was a bit of a challenge, because there are hardly any 'this part goes here' indications on the entire construction... This also reminded me that I forgot to add weight in the nose. Luckily, I was able to pry off the nose cone without damaging it. For weight, I use a sheet of roofing lead I bought years ago in a hardware store. Lead is easy to cut and bend and (being lead) weighs a lot by volume. A little goes a long way. Here's a picture: you can see the main gear legs are kind of floating, suspended by two supports. I also have a distinct impression that the wheels are oversized.

The intakes need more filling and the fuselage sides need a lot of sanding, but construction is nearing the end.

 

I finished the café doors this week. They were painted green, with a frosted window pane in the lower frame. The other two are clear 'glass'.

Here's a step-by-step of the process. First, a small hole was drilled in the bottom of each door and a toothpick pushed into it to hold the piece.

1. Base coat was several thinned layers of Mig 065 Forest Green, followed by 4 layers of drybrushing. Base coat on the right, first layer of drybrush Green on the left.

2. More 0607 Green drybrushed. I'm building up this layer rather heavily, to give an impression of faded paint.

3. Next colour was Mig 0606 Medium Green. This was done a bit more precise, mostly higlighting raised detail and lines.

4. To simulate flaked paint, I used Mig 0619 Earth, on the edges of the doors, and only in some places. To give this a little extra contrast, I put some Mig 0602 Medium Grey over the Earth shade, again only in some places. It's very subtle (maybe a bit too subtle).

5. Finally, once the paint was laid down, I cut out the window panes. I cut some pieces too short, as you can see with the fails on the right, but eventually I had 6 pieces of 'glass' that more-or-less fit into the doors. I glued the bottom pane on both doors with Mig Ultra Glue, took them home, sprayed matt varnish over them and brought them back to glue the other 4 panes.

6. Final result looks like this. The doors don't fit closed, but I'm not going to sand these and potentially ruin my work, so I'll pose them (half) open.

All the paints used in one row (No oil paints for once :-) ).

One final (for now) piece of street furniture: a street light. I'll paint this one dark green. The glass will be a big problem here, because the panes are trapezoid, not square. We'll see if I succeed in that one...

 

That's it for this week, a short one for sure, but it's been a bit slow going.

 

See you next week!