SPA Modeler

All the components of the IP come together to make a beautiful looking piece

John,
this is just a miracle! By far the most beautiful build, on par with others from you I have had the pleasure to follow. Your modelling skills are first class, the photography just beautiful! You are at a level I dream about to reach, but there is no hope! The Homare is a perfect reproduction of a real engine, I guess there is NOTHING that could be done better!
Such a pleasure to admire your work!!!

Holy Moley... fantastic work. Yeah, I’ve been on a car building spree as of late. Aircraft building has taken a back seat temporarily for the time being.

The wiring on the engine is exceptionally well done.

Thanks guys! I appreciate the feedback!

After the black base coat, I use the Mr Hobby Kawanishi Cockpit Green C-384 as my primary cockpit color. The cockpit floor and seat have been pre-treated with a metallic color and MIG Scratches Effect fluid so those areas are chipped. And then it is time to start painting the details by hand. This part of the build gets very un-structured. It takes a lot of motivation for me to paint the cockpit details and I'll usually do it in non-sequential order... just attacking whatever piece or part that grabs my attention. Because of this, I usually don't have lots of in-progress shots until towards the end.




Slowly but surely, the cockpit gets painted and after that the big parts are given a clear coat and a dark wash is applied. Since there are a lot of delicate parts, I have to be very careful during the wash process. After the wash, a flat coat is put on and final weathering effects are applied like dry-brushing edges and some oil staining.




The cockpit is then partially assembled to see how the various painted components look together. This dry-fitting exercise has a few missing components, most notably the seat harnesses, which should be arriving this week. The starboard side...





The port side...




We can't forget the reality of what happens when both cockpit sidewalls are put into place.

That is a very busy cockpit. Weathering is spot on. What did you use for the dirty brown spots on the floor?

Thanks Clint! The closeup shots are brutal and it has me thinking about my cockpit work in the future.

The floor staining was done by mixing several dots of different colored oil paints.

The cockpit looks incredible!!!

Thanks Mike, I appreciate the comment!

Hopefully the HGW seatbelts arrive soon so that I can complete the cockpit.

Is there ever a time that sharp photos don't bring out every little fault? I think it looks very nice, but the seat is not convincing to me, it looks more worn than I would expect. Not that I could equal how well you do this stuff. I have one of these to build but perhaps I shouldn't show it here