SPA Modeler

Before adding the brake lines, I've weathered the wheel wells slightly using different brown shades on the airbrush.


Small pieces of lead wire are used to extend the brake lines up into the fuselage instead of unrealistically ending at the edge of the wheel well.


It's a small modification but I like that it adds one more layer of credibility to the undersides.


Now I'm working towards attachment of the wings to the fuselage so I need to get the brass flaps situated correctly. The flap interior is glued into the upper wings.


The actual flaps are folded per instructions.


The flaps won't be glued until the end of the build but you can see the cool complexity that this set adds to the Dora.


Here is my first stab at the painting of the tires. There is some subtlety here that the photo doesn't show as I used a lot of different shades of browns, greys and khaki to get this effect. The main idea was to try and break the monolithic tube of the tire. I'll probably see what it looks like with the wheel painted and hopefully, I can take better photos. Jury is still out on whether or not I go with this approach.


Will be taking a break from modeling as I am driving up to Berkeley this weekend to fetch our daughter from college. See you guys in a few days!

I am enamored with this.

KennyX wrote:

I am enamored with this.

Most impressive work! Man, you are one mad-skilled Master! That wheel well looks fully realistic!

Stikpusher wrote:

KennyX wrote:

I am enamored with this.

- Kari

Back from our trip to Berkeley! I was able to do a little more work on Red 1. The wheels were painted very dark grey with some highlights in black.


The tires were treated with a bit of dry pastels along the contact patch. The wheels have not been weathered yet... I'm waiting to play around with the oils that I ordered off of Ebay.


The interior of the upper flaps were painted RLM02 over a base coat of black.


The interior of the flaps were painted RLM02 over a base of Aclad Aluminum. I decided to have a two-tone finish on the flap interiors... metal background and RLM02 foreground. Since the RLM02 were sprayed over different colored bases, the upper and lower colors don't match and that's something that I'll have to adjust.


My first attempt at dipping the clear parts in Future weren't successful. I'm not sure what happened here but Future can be easily removed with Windex with no ill effects.


So I wiped the clear parts clean and did the dip again. Dipping in Future makes clear parts clearer and has the added advantage of protecting the clear parts from the frosting of CA glue.


That's all for now!

And I forgot this photo... the head armor and support were painted. I took the liberty of streaking a slightly lighter shade of RLM66 along the top edge to simulate some fading.

I like the idea with the streaking. It also can simulate the diffused light shining through the acrylic canopy.

Brilliant work man. You think of everything!