FM 1/72 Me 410A-1, IIZG26, Gelbe Sieben, Werl, Germany 1943.

[Stuart]

Looks like a good surface for paint Bruce!

[speedgraflex]

Thanks so much, Stuart. Initially I was thinking about brush painting the model, and use Q-Tips or some art store equivalencies to replicate the mottling on the sides of the tail fin. This could still happen. I was planning to airbrush the RLM 66 inside and the RLM 76 outside. The propeller hubs I think I am going to airbrush Tamiya White Primer for the stripes and Mr Surfacer 1500 for the hubs and blades. I have great water based oils (fast drying too) to try on the green black blades. I might black base the cockpit then brush a RLM 66 mixed from oils. Hmmmm.

[Stikpusher]

Bruce, for a nice small scale mottle dabbed on, you might want to try make up sponges. I got ahold of a couple clean ones from my wife & daughters. I tear off a small chunk to get a nice irregular shape and glue it to a toothpick, rough side out. For use, dip it into the paint, dab off excess paint , then mottle on your model. Works beautifully. Used on this build.

[Stuart]

Thanks so much, Stuart. Initially I was thinking about brush painting the model, and use Q-Tips or some art store equivalencies to replicate the mottling on the sides of the tail fin. This could still happen. I was planning to airbrush the RLM 66 inside and the RLM 76 outside. The propeller hubs I think I am going to airbrush Tamiya White Primer for the stripes and Mr Surfacer 1500 for the hubs and blades. I have great water based oils (fast drying too) to try on the green black blades. I might black base the cockpit then brush a RLM 66 mixed from oils. Hmmmm.

I'll be looking forward to seeing that Bruce.

I think you should be able to Q-tip the mottles (or sponge as Stik suggested), I did it a long time ago on a bf109 I built and it worked out pretty well.

[speedgraflex]

Thanks so much Carlos for your advice! What a great idea—and your model looks amazing. What a great way to achieve a camouflage! Bravo and thank you!

Stuart, Thank you as well. I truly appreciate your advice and encouragement. I am thinking about the order of painting as well. Currently I think I will paint subassemblies first in a nontraditional approach—glue the cockpit and fuselage together as one subassembly, wings as another, fins as another and upper and lower canopies as the last ones—to facilitate primer and paint operations rather than build to a competed structure for painting. I also would like to mask the white banding on the fuselage—perhaps spray that in white primer, using a simple mask. My goals are one color coat and one camo coat just like the real deal. I have to treat the white areas the way we all do as masked sections, to reduce blending—although part of me now thinks I can just go for it with painting the unit band over the camo greens.

[Stuart]

That could work well - I have seen models were they were painted in parts and them assembled. It worked well for the de-markation on the upper and lower wings.

Banding can be fun. I've done it both ways with things like D-day stripes etc. However I generally like to paint the area of the banding first and then mask.

[speedgraflex]

Thanks, Stuart—and thanks to Lord Google, here is Yellow 7:



Item one—there are spirals on the prop hubs aren’t there? How m’I gonna do those?

[Stuart]

Item one—there are spirals on the prop hubs aren’t there? How m’I gonna do those?

Does the kit come with decals? - if not very good masking. It's not something I've ever had to do thankfully!

[speedgraflex]

Haha! I can’t find anything aftermarket in scale size...



I do see spirals on the decal sheet from FM.

[jkim]

Why would you brush paint the camo and use q-tips for the mottle when you have an airbrush? Not sure I understand the logic there. Unless you just want to give brush painting a try?

Looks like you'll have to remove the fuselage gun turrets for Yellow which should be challenging. I find shallow raised areas like this among the most difficult to remove.