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"Alpine Green Camo" Messerschmitt BF 109G-6


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I really like the camo pattern very inspiring. By your title it sounds like you prefer to use a brush instead of an airbrush? Looking closely it appears that your paint may be drying faster than you can apply it creating an orange peel effect. You can solve this my using something like Vallejo paint retarder medium to slow the drying time and improve flow. If your interested in smoothing out the edges of the camouflage try masking putty even plain sillyputty works great just do thin layers allow plenty of drying time between coats at least 4-6 hrs. If you get build up of paint on the edges after removing the mask dont be affraid to take some fine sanding pad and knock them down. If you accidentally get too heavy handed you can do light touch ups. A rattle can finish coat of matt will even everything out.

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Thank you both for encouragement and interest. This will be my second plane (after the revel f117) and at least this time i have some experience to hopefully make it decent and not make the big mistakes.

 

Yes, sadly even brushing very gently, evening the paint, waiting 40m-60m between a coat and using 4 coats for the base green color, there's orange peel.

This smooth plastic is a hell to hold paint and im afraid if the plane will retain the rivet details when i put enough paint to make it truly green.

 

I was looking at some kinda brushable primer "mr. surfacer" maybe? The guy at the store I don't really have any options. I don't know what to do.

I thought the paint retarded is some meme but i see now that it prevents orange peel? I do use a smaller brush and keep brushing the paint around to even it out but by the time i even it out it starts to dry a little and orange peel forms.

If i use the paint retarded a little, wont it make it even harder to cover the plastic with the coats?

 

anyway the TRIVIA here is that mr.hobby aqueous didnt really have warm, bright green colors so i had to buy 2 pale greens, and use a toothpick to drop yellow paint in both until they became warmer, around 25 drops. And i had to drop like 5 drops of black in the darker green to make it even darker. So the good news is I made custom paints.

 

The shitty news is the cat probably dropped the gray paint in the trash bucket and I never found out. And i got tired of driving to the store on the other side of town for little things. But at the same time I don't want to make the plane shitty using only green, white and black.

 

The idea was that I want to keep this hobby not super expensive and If I use a spray nozzle I would have to mask things and paint at weird angles...and i would mess it up. Painting with a brush is definitely more enjoyable. And now it was time to assemble the cockpit...

 

Ah....damn. The idea was to paint certain parts before glueing them together, and leave 3mm edge where the glue sticks to the other part, to be painted later. That way I don't have to hold the whole flimsy plane, but can paint wings and body enjoyable.

 

Of course after painting the whole seat black I see that there are other parts that have to be glued on top. and the glue wont bond if applied on paint. So the smart move is...I used the tweezers to scratch the paint where i must glue a part, revealing the bare plastic...and it worked.

the hell part was the "metal photo-etched" parts which can't really be glued with the regular mr.cement glue.

 

I still managed to use mr cement to glue the 3 little dingo-dongos on the right side of the flight stick. But for the metal leg pedals..i tried using a drop of superglue i had in the fridge.

And of course it was a complete hell. The glue decided to just stay liquid FOR SOME REASON and i ended up throwing the metal pedal parts.

I use the regular plastic pedals instead, now trying to put them on the super glue.

I don't know if i put them upside down....or why...but i spent 30 minutes trying to position them somewhat ok.

 

As you can see the super glue left some residue and "weathered" the paint. and the right pedal is covered in glue dust as well...but it could be worse..

I dont know how professionals use tweezers to super glue tiny etched parts as...the super glue immediately sticks on the tweezers and the part wants to stick to the tweezers instead on where i want it to.

 

honestly the pro on youtube made it look so easy..and never showed how he actually put the pedals.

 

Still...for a newbie...for someone that always did half-assed jobs in his life...i started this hobby to become a calmer and more precise person. And its working...Id never believe I could use tweezers and glue tiny details. And you get to see (if you are a newbie too) that...its possible to make an "ok in the end" job.

 

Sadly I lost the part that was supposed to hold the small wheel on the left side of the cockpit...but maybe i will manage to just glue the wheel to the inner side of the plane, making it look at the same place...

 

I'm not going to leave it looking like this...so i guess im heading to the store again today....make the chair some beige/dark red and pick some metal gray paint...and i'll even try to add some wash/weathering.

 

Its hard..and i will have to use the tiny brush again..but the whole point is taking something that looks pretty bad....and somehow making it look surprisingly good (for a newbie).

 

I do have BIG plans for the body of the plane. I did buy a dark brown weathering pencil, and i will even use oil paints (both white and dark) to accent every part.

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Went to buy gray and white paint. Guy at the store said my wings have too many layers of paint. Said i should wait 3 hours between coats, if i want the paint to cover properly with less coats. They didn't have paint retarded.

He said I should always wet my brush with water before in the paint...but i think that would slowly make the paint too watery.

 

So let's see what I managed to do last night.

chair, pedals and feet rests+buttons thingy is tamiya metallic gray. but i also used some white on the feet rests.

center console thingy is green with the wall, flight stick is orangy with metallic gray and a black handle on top + a red button

the cabin remains black around, but the left and right side of the plane would be dark green.

 

This is only..1-2 layers so it's not looking good still...but with 1 or 2 more layers it will look good.

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There is allot to unpack here. Put your unpainted bare photo etch on bare plastic you can use plain crazy glue just dispense it in a small cap and use a toothpick or something small to place it then paint it. You shouldn't be painting parts before you assemble them. 

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Your color PE is meant to go on last same gluing process. Keep crazy glue away from clear parts the fumes will fog your clear plastic.

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If you dont like your paint job you can soak your model in 99% isopropyl alcohol for 20min then use a toothbrush to remove all the paint.

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Retry your paint brush teqnique with a view to do a primer coat then a thinner top coat then the camouflage. A top quality brush will make all the difference. You should really explore buying your supplies online it will save you money and open up a world of possibilities.

 

I agree with you wetting your brush will only dilute the paint too much. 

 

Read more of these for forums their us allot of great modeling happening and great tips ask questions everyone loves to help.

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I see on your fuselage half the green paint has flowed over the edge. Be sure to sand, file or scrape paint off before joining two halves or parts. Use Tamiya extra thin cement you can hold your parts together then take some on the brush that comes with it run some over the joint as apposed to using globby model glue.

 

If you have cracks, gaps or uneven seams try your hand at using putty to fill the gap then after it has dried sand it smooth. Like I said this site and YouTube has great tutorials for beginner modelers that will make your modelling more enjoyable. Sometimes you will stumble onto a process that will work great for making a better model.

 

Here is a great video very recent 

 

 

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Thank you night owl for the tips! I do bring new pics today....I did a lot of work today finally to finish the cabin 99%.

Painting the parts was challenging, because I wanted to make it more easy for me, but I also had to use my sharp tweezers to scrape away the paint at places where mr. cement would glue the pieces.

So, yes it was tricky..but i managed to make the parts stick after scrubbing the paint away at the specific areas. I know it wasnt exactly the right thing to do, but i wanted to do a great paint job on each part.

- what you can see here is I used white paint on the edges of the walls for contrast and to make the paint look chipped. (a little too much)

- I tried a black+red wash+water but I waited for 2 hours then scraping the wash away with a ear muff did....nothing much. Weird dark stains were left from the wash which are...ok for me actually.

- sadly I LOST 1 part which goes on the right wall...but i did FIND the lost wheel part next to the chair. These tiny parts, especially the photo etched...fall on the ground so easily and its game over!

- im happy with the wash (i did the central cabin too) but i still need to paint the wheel, accent the white edges with gray instead, paint the right panel...green? and fix the part above the chair that is grudged with dry glue.

- i cant believe how detailed they made this cabin...it took me 2 weeks, all i wanted was to paint the wings and assemble the plain, instead this cabin made me insane, yet i grew to like it. I never thought i would learn to apply superglue with a toothpick and hold tiny parts with tweezers in place as i glue them.

 

Now I dont know about brushes. i paid 2.5$ for my two ITALIERI ones, pretty expensive...i thought they are soft enough to apply paint without leaving strokes?

-it has become quite obvious that painting without spraying primer is just complete hell. Paint just flows everywhere like a wash and gathers up as brush marks. At this point I have to gently sand down the first 2 coats and then make it all even.

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This has been infuriating....2 weeks+....to assemble the damned cabin. But finally it is done and I can do the fun part of painting the actual plane.

1. at this point i might as well buy some primer spray for cars because applying the first layer of paint with a brush on the glossy plastic part is just horrible.

2. the yellow stick in the cabin needs another layer of yellow and I have to properly glue it to the inner wall...which will be a messy problem. using super glue with a toothpick again...

3. The upper part of the seat is covered in dried glue which I couldnt get off with sandpaper...we will see what to do...

4. tried to apply some white pant on the side before I draw the livery. Actually covers pretty good for 1 layer! I thought it would take 10 layers before it becomes white.

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I only had a permanent marker to draw the separation line. Not even a thinner one...

Painting white on top of the market of course caused it to turn blue.

But when its dry tomorrow it should be fully covered, so only white and green remains.

Meanwhile i need a thinner market.

 

The good news is its actually starting to look...like its gonna look great when finished.

Unless you are pre-cutting a scotch-tape mask....using thin markers and small brushes just gives you a superior camo.

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This is so annoying... I tried to do a black "pin wash" with some paint in water....and it didnt do anything. The paint would rather make stains....but not go in the tiny pin holes. At this point I might just give up and not do washes at all.

THANKFULLY, the rusty weathering pen is at least somewhat easy to use. But i don't want to make it too rusty...

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FINALLY, bought a pack of smaller markers with a smaller point from the store. and lucky they had a green marker...which is almost black.

Now I actually get to make beautiful fine edge camo and this is the point where the plane starts to get good, for a plane painted with brushes.

And i suspect even the spray nozzle people are going to get angry.

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Yea, so the kit didnt fit perfectly on the tail side...so i had to sand down and still the rear wing i had to position somewhat in the air with a gap, just to keep them straight.

so much for the perfect fit quality kit... And i cut by mistake a piece of holding the read wing, so i will have to use putty to fix it.

As for the front side...because i paint before glueing...some of the paint come off on top and i will have to do some sanding and repainting.

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Its becoming more and more apparent that the whole hobby is made to be an elitist thing where you have to spend 300$ on tools and pushed to spend another 300$ on an airbrush too. and just keep spending money (:

If the parts needing sanding down being cast unperfectly, and putty needed for various seems and cracks was needed, wasnt enough...

and the paint needing to be thinned down and retarder added wasnt enough...

Now, after the sandpaper, the putty mess, the thinning of paint (i didnt buy retarder still) and i used superglue for the PE parts instead of $$$ special glue....

We find that we need a 0.2mm drill tool. And obviously if you use a larger drill like the 1.5mm i had you would just make a mess and the piece wont fit blablabal.

 

At this point I grabbed a needle with my pliers, heated it red with a lighter and just made a hole by melting the plastic. Not surprisingly it worked perfectly, just like the tiny drill the store doesnt have, and even if they had..it would have costed another 20$ im sure.

And if there is some plastic pushed out on the other side, ill just sand it down.

 

So yes, this is a 100$ hand-brushed built, with 1000 degree needle poked holes, with camo being drawn with a 1$ marker instead of expensive shaping putty.

And i filled some putty in the wings to make sure they are glued solid.

 

And in the end its going to look fine, for a hand brushed plane...its going to be amazing. And you dont have to remortgage the house for special glues, retarders, special drills, shaping putty and who knows what more!? 10$ AK47 washes?

 

 

 

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