Eduard Box Art from their website, hard to believe they still keep instructions online, too. Good work, Eduard.
Nieuport XI "Bebe" N1135
... guys it's Christmas time and I wanna open a box of something...
And above you can see some really cool details; check out that doped linen color shifting... oh, snap it looks like one wheel is unpainted and one is PAINTED GREEN, oh that is cool...
Historical Note: Capt Jacques de Plande Sieyes de Veynes took command of N 26 in May 1916. On 5 June, N 26 was transferred from Flanders sector to Cachy in the VI° Armee sector where it join Brocard's Groupement de Combat de la Somme. On July 3 1916, Capitaine le Comte J L V de Plandes Sieyes de Veynes of Escadrille N.26 was brought down in the German lines between Flers and Douai. His Nie.11 N1135, broke its tailskid, but apparently was otherwise undamaged.
Why this 2001 kit by Eduard?
This kit dominates the field in 1/48 scale. My main reason for starting on a quarter scale kit is my limited available workspace. I'm not quite able to stretch with enough room for a 1/32 kit which has led to stalled builds and frustration. Also: anyone familiar with Eduard will recognize the quality of the plastic tooling on two very well-designed sprues with one small clear part for a windscreen.Photos to come in my next post. Many of you may not know but the majority of my model kits reside in storage. I have a small place and expect to be moving soon.
My Game Plan
This will be a long term project. I'll be working through the known information and the realities of scale presentation. I'll be learning about biplane rigging as well, but primarily I see this as a detailing project. Let's see where that idea takes me. I tentatively set aside the next quarter to build this kit and would really like that to be the case, however I'm open to an even longer time frame. Why spend so much time? For me, this is about learning and developing better skills. I have been remiss here on the forum from posting and would like to change that. I'll be starting from the pilot's cockpit area and developing the project along the familiar build lines we all use, but I'll be also comparing and contrasting with images from source material as I go along. From all accounts I have seen, this is an excellent base kit to build into a very credible model.
Question
Is anyone familiar with WWI French biplane colors? I have the following call outs prepared by Eduard. What are these numbers? Mr. Color call outs? Forgive me, gents. I'm just getting back into this business of aircraft models again!
You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.
Thanks, Tom. I was on the wrong page and I have the instructions in printed form from the kit itself. Oh, it's been awhile. Thank you so much for your help with this! Now I can look for colors and see if I agree with them. Compare and contrast with Wingnut's ideas.
You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.
I’ll be following this build. I’ve got the Academy 1/32 scale Sopwith Camel in my stash. I, too, will attempt rigging the Sopwith Camel as well. Rigging does intimidate me but I’m willing to try my best by practicing on a Stearman first at some point down the road.
“Who controls the skies, controls the fate of this Earth”
Author unknown- 352nd Fighter Group, Blue-Nosed Bastards of Bodney
“Send one plane it’s a sortie; send two planes it’s a flight; send four planes it’s a test of airpower. - Richard Kohn
1916 photo using Lumiere color process known as "Autochrome"
Autochrome (Lumière brothers) color method, very faithful regarding the color rendering, representing the Jean Chaput Nieuport 11 at the time of the Verdun battle (April 1916)
You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.
"Surely I have made my meaning plain? I intend to avenge myself upon you, Admiral. I have deprived your ship of power, and when I swing 'round, I intend to deprive you of your life."
Great! Thanks so much for joining, Carlos! I mean it. I'm going to stick with a four month build process on this. The kit has solid, really solid bones. I need to take photos of the sprues but they are really well done. What's interesting is that the interior struts which I want to call the 'cabane" struts are made of aluminum and the landing gear struts are also made from aluminum. Maybe cast or forged? I'm not sure.
Recolored Box Art Image
Here I'm using a set of neural filters in Photoshop to give the fuselage a quick recolor based on the actual photograph of a plane from that time period. More brown than green. I've done this to bring the colors more in line with that 1916 photo. I lost some of the color density and contrast as a result but i believe that makes for a more accurate assessment of the actual color shifts (assuming painted doped canvas).
OOPS. I forgot that one wheel was painted. I'm going to try brown just like the actual photograph. Check it. Let me know what you think. I think it's important and the actual photo shows that the brown was covering as much or more so than the green whereas the Eduard version is a green plane.
I'm not sure if this is accurate the ideas flowing from the real photograph in color make the changes plausible and that does have an impact on my thinking. I"m gonna add some silver to the cowling and increase overall contrast.
Final Adjustments
You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.
This is gonna be fantastic to follow! I'll be watching this closely!
I like the third rendition the most I think. Keep it coming Bruce!
The Duke
Virtuoso of Miniatures
"Do you know what the chain of command is? It's the chain I get and beat you with 'till you understand who's in ruttin' command!"
-Jayne Cobb, Firefly Episode 2 "The Train Job"
We are modelers - the same in spirit, in hunger to insanely buy newly released kits, hustlers in hiding our stash from our better halves and experts in using garbage as replacements for after-market parts.
Thanks so much for checking in and climbing aboard! I do think version 3 is the winner of a chicken dinner. Perhaps this goes a bit against the two black and white images but as these are the Squadrons which flew at Verdun I would expect a dirtier more effective brown camouflage, then the proud green. That’s where these aircraft came into their own, albeit briefly in active fighter status roles before being shunted to pilot trainers. I think Russia flew the Nieuport 11s until the 1920; I’m quoting Wikipedia now so I’ll stop before my brain turns to mush.
V4
You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.
