Tamiya 1:72 Mosquito FB Mk.VI

[dr_gn]

Yertis said:

This clickbait might be of interest (ignore the weird URL).

Apologies if you've already seen it.

Nice images, thanks. I've not seen most of them, but the woman working on the fuselage I've already got. It shows the bias of the outer skins of the rear fuselage very nicely. Also the shot of the fitters working on the tailplane confirms that the fin root fairing was metallic.

I think they are coloured versions of b&w originals, but still great to see.

Anyway, tonight I applied some Tamiya Smoke to the nacelles etc., to give a bit of contrast to the panels. I then overcoated with Mr.Colour Gloss + 10% Tamiya Flat Base to give a satin finish:



Ideally, I'd like it all a bit more matt, so for the final coat of the finished model, I'll probably go to 20% Flat Base.

[MonkeySpanker]

EskimoArapaho said:

Loving this, dr! I wonder what the furniture makers would think of this painstaking effort to replicate their work in miniature.

Good job MFI weren't around in those days!!

[perdu]

dr_gn said:

I've masked the aluminium nacelles ready for overspraying with a slightly darker shade, or maybe clear "smoke" to give a bit of contrast between the panels:



Also made a start on drawing the main wood skin demarcations on the wings and tailplanes:



At least these are my best guess based on studying photographs. Another couple of chord-wise lines on the wings, and they'll be done.

You did some lovely work with the hatch G but I wouldnt be tempted to put any more chordwise lines on the mainplanes

Too much would look like a 'cartoon' rather than a wing

I tend to shy away from overdetail as you know, what you have here is nice AND believable

[dr_gn]

Ta Perdu. It needs two more lines to divide up the remaining large panel on the wings into thirds, otherwise there will be no demarcation for the outer wing panels.

[perdu]

OKaaaay...

keep it light please, just faint edge to edge

I understand the task, just hope you steer clear of the pitfalls the other chap didn't


And


to be clear, I'm sure you will

[dr_gn]

Don't forget it's a model of something that would never be real, so in this case, a bit more artistic license won't be too bad. I know what you mean though. Tricky balance at 1:72, but I guess it's too late now.

[perdu]

[dr_gn]

The main panel demarcations are pencilled in now:



Difficult to judge these because they appear to be slightly different on different aircraft. Even the two images of the new-build Mosquitos I've seen have different skin boundaries. Had a bit of help on the smaller details via. The People's Mosquito, so I thought I'd make a small contribution to their efforts:





I still need to draw some very fine demarcations for the herringbone sub-panels on the rear fuselage and outer wing panels. They are very obvious on the real thing, but unfortunately the linear grain on the decals isn't obvious enough to replicate the effect.

Also got a couple of new toys in the post today:



These will be pretty much essential for cutting masks for all the inspection panels on the airframe.

[Yertis]

Always nice to have an excuse to buy new tools!

[dr_gn]

So the demarcations are done:



And the preshading:





Might give it a very thin dusting of matt white to reduce the contrast, and also give the pva decal adhesive something to key into.

[dr_gn]

Masking around all the metallic panels was fun:



At least the hole punch sets got some heavy use. Next job is to spray this lot in various shades of Aluminuinm, to match the nacelles. I'll mask the fuselage if the wings look ok when woodgrained. If not I'll quietly retire it think...

[dr_gn]

Preshaded silver, then masked various panels for an overspray of Smoke:



Then remove tape:



Next will be applying the woodgrain decals and seeing if it looks right or not.

[HoHoHo]

Looks brilliant so far

Fingers crossed for the next post Dr_Gn .............

[dr_gn]

HoHoHo said:

Looks brilliant so far

Fingers crossed for the next post Dr_Gn .............

Appreciated

So here we go with the first templates:



They didn't look right...

Close of play:



It's a strange process: Adding adjacent panels makes the existing ones look totaly different. The variation in grain on the same sheet also makes a big difference to the results. I'm not even suer of the effect I want to end up with, I'm just trying different decals and seeing which looks best.

Applying the decals is fairly straightforward; cutting them around small details in-situ is surprisingly easy.

[dr_gn]

Wing topsides nearly done, just need some slightly darker spanwise strips:



Strange green hue on the preshading, must be the camera getting confused with the combination tungsten/led lights in the office.

[Mutley]

Doc, that is looking grand

[dr_gn]

Mutley said:

Doc, that is looking grand

Thanks, the preshading is a bit more than normal for me, but then again it's not a conventional finish. I think there's a way of reducing the effect with an oil paint glaze (filter) somehow. Alex from UvderR explained it to me at Telford, but I forgot the details of what he said.

Plus I'm nearly out of decals.

[perdu]

Wow

If this was from anyone else I'd be more impressed G but TBH I expected no less

Time to buy more woodgrain then is it?

I'd be tempted to darken, probably unrealistically, the spanwise graining.

At this stage artistic impression is key

Looks blo**y great mon ami, outstanding model in the offing...

[dr_gn]

Ta very much Perdu. It's very difficult to get a decent photo of it that shows what it really looks like. For example, these two are of the model with the upper wings fully decalled, but different lighting makes them look like different models:





The latter is closer to reality, although the darker port wing is not really like that, I think it must be slightly in shadow.

Yes, I agree that the pale woodgrain needs deepening a bit to reduce the contrast of the preshading. In fact if it looked more like the first image in reality, I'd be happy with the effect.

[AshVX220]

Are you going to apply the RAF decals (for want of a better term) over the top, or leave it as bare, as it would be completely prior to any painting of camouflage and unit markings? (If any of that makes sense).