A somewhat different subject to my Samurai collection this week! I needed a break from painting Samurai figures and so switched to another of my interests, building 1/48th scale kits. I intend to build a collection of both 1/48th scale tanks and AFV’s that have served in the British army, primarily to go with my wargaming collection. Although my wargames figures are 28mm and in theory, 1/56th scale, once based, they look more at home with 1/48th vehicles in my opinion. Of course, once I had built and painted a few tanks, I soon became attracted to the other possibilities available. I have now got a number of aircraft kits in my stash to be built one day – Spitfire, Lancaster, Fockewulfe and Beaufighter for starters! As well as these subjects I have also been long fascinated by the Nazi Super weapons of World War two. I have already built the Tamiya 1/48th scale V1 and I had in my stash a Pegasus 1/48th scale V2.
The kit was actually a clip together model and I wasn’t sure how it would go together. In the event, it was a joy to snap together, everything seemed to fit without a problem and there was very little scraping or filling that was required. The next stage was to paint it. I didn’t like the scheme shown on the box but instead went for a colour scheme that I had seen in one of my reference books. The image on the bottom right is the one that I based my colour scheme on.
Once I had primed the model, I then used my airbrush to spray it in Vallejo 70922 uniform green for the base coat.
My first attempt at masking the base coat off to get the splinter pattern camouflage ended in disaster! I used Tamiya thin flexible masking tape to ‘draw’ the camouflage design onto the model and the attempted to brush paint it with the contrasting colour, Model Air 71011 Dark green. What a mess! After some thought I resorted to using Frog tape to mask off larger areas so that I could re spray the Dark Green.
The frog tape was excellent for the purpose and I used a scalpel to make some cut outs to add to the detail of the splinter camouflage pattern. Once I was happy with the result, I sprayed the nose cone matt black, added the decals and then gave the model a coat of satin varnish
It’s fair to say that the decal is probably incorrect but looks good on the finished model. These days I am only interested in making a good representation of the subject rather than an IPMS standard model! I’m not entirely happy with the launch pad. I initially sprayed it in a desert yellow but I have then weathered it to a lighter colour. I’m not sure whether the launch pad was reused or was a one off item and I ended up with neither a pristine new pad or a well used one! Oh well! It looks good enough!
I now have both of the main V weapons in my cabinet. I would love to add some of the German Rocket fighters and Jets at some stage but they will have to wait in the queue!
So now it’s back to Samurai – I have 11 cavalry models to make and paint!
As always, Happy Modelling!