SPA Modeler

I’m with you 100% on the “why brush with Tamiya?” thing, especially when it comes to large areas. I like spraying them. So much so, that I don’t airbrush with anything else really. For little things and fine details they work well enough for me, but I have been known to subcontract the fine brush work to Vallejo paints from time to time.

That sounds like a great idea!

I finished picking out the details on those panels, and I affixed them, and the seat, to the aft bulkhead:





I also worked with highlighting, per John’s excellent comments. Just an experiment. I think it looks cool:

Yes that does indeed look cool - are you going to add a wash as well?

Yes sir! Here’s what I’m thinking-

1. A wash to dirty it up.

2. A light dusting of pigment to simulate a little bit of sand and/or coral dust.

I came up with #2 after thinking about me and my wife’s trip to Panama City and Mobile Bay two Summers ago. That was a great trip. And what happens to your car whenever you’ve been hanging out on the beach all day and you get in to leave and go back to the hotel? No matter how well you showered-off, you still get sand in the car. So, a light dusting of a light(ish) pigment as well, I’m thinking.

Work for on the cockpit looks really good Kenny.

I concur with the coral dust/sand line of thinking. Tamiya Weathering pastels have a sand in their line but it looks a bit yellow IIRC. I will have a look later and get back to you. Possibly just a light wash? Certainly on the tyres and externals such as the landing gear when you get there.

Regards,

I have a full range of pastels which I can use for pigments, my man. All colors!

Yes... that looks amazing! The redo on the control switches made such a difference. I wanted to know if the example cockpits you have researched show scrapes on the painted surfaces or not? I have a pile of Pacific warbirds images of Mustangs with cockpits featuring abraded surfaces in high activity areas... there is nothing that quite ‘sizzles’ like layers of metal shining through paint. No highlighting necessary.

Thank you, Bruce!

And yessir, there’s going to be a lot of abrasions in there by the time I’m done with her. I was actually thinking about testing paint chipping with salt/hairspray in there but opted to leave that for the Stuka cockpit because this one’s so small. In the case of this here, it’ll be me going to town with a silver Prismacolor pencil. At this scale that should be fine.

Like so.