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major_clangerWhen I bought my 1:48 TSR2 kit I thought I’d get a more mainstream kit in that scale to practice on, so I picked up the Airfix 1:48 scale Red Arrows Hawk. It’s been sat for some time in my to-build pile so I thought it would be my first serious project to test out airbrush painting on. After all, it should be fairly simple – as colour schemes go, the Red Arrows one is a lot more straightforward than many.
The first step was to build the cockpit. Here’s the cockpit as assembled, but without seats for the moment.
Painted grey, and with a dark wash to bring out the details in the instrument and switch panels.
Further painting to replicate the black instrument panel, together with dry-brushing to highlight details. This is when you put a bit of contrasting paint on a brush, wipe almost all of it off, then brush lightly over the base colour. The effect is to bring out surface detail.
Cockpit installed inside fuselage half, with matching other half of fuselage, and interior of cockpit wall painted. Note also a couple of small nuts glued in the nose to ensure that the model sits with its nosewheel on the ground. Plastic models don’t have the same weight distribution as the real thing and if you’re not careful you can end up with a plane that wants to sit on its tail.
Fuselage halves joined and wing added. I spent some time filing down the seam with progressively finer sanders to get a smooth finish. However, this is where things went a bit wrong. The fuselage was a bit of a tight fit into the wing, but I forced it in. This was a mistake as the effect was to bend the wings down. This is called anhedral when it is meant to happen and a ‘a bit of a cock up’ when it’s not. I was able to rescue the model with application of lots of very hot water to soften the plastic followed by some careful bending.
Primer applied. I used Halfords Plastic Primer, which is relatively cheap, comes in a big spray tin, and seems to work very well – a lot of model-makers recommend it. Priming really starts to bring out the panel lines; it also highlights any seams you’ve not filed smooth!
The intakes come separately on the Airfix model and need painting first so as they’d be very awkward to paint once assembled.
At this point my earlier mistake came back to haunt me. The distortion introduced at the wing root was still there and this made the intake fit very bad. Lots of plastic filler had to be applied and sanded down.
Here’s the result, sanded and with more primer. I wasn’t very happy with the result but it was clear that getting a completely smooth join from intake to fuselage would be very difficult thanks to the distortion.
Having painted the nosewheel bay and the inside of the intakes I had to protect them. The cockpit I’d covered with masking tape but for these bits a cut-up foam ear plug worked very well.
Airbrushed with red paint, specifically Humbrol 238 that is the specific Red Arrows shade. I am finding that it’s hard to get a really good finish with Humbrol acrylics via the airbrush; here, I got a little bit of orange-peeling. The Lifecolor paints recommended on the airbrush course I did do seem to give smoother and better results, but here I needed the particular colour.
Now for the canopy. The Hawk ejection system doesn’t jettison the canopy but instead uses miniature detonating cord (MDC) embedded in the canopy to shatter it just before the ejection seats fire through it. I thought that painting this would be a nightmare but I found a handy article online that noted that the MDC pattern is in fact moulded as a slight recess in the inside of the canopy. So, if you brush the inside with paint and then immediately wipe it off, some will be retained in the recessed mould, giving the appearance of the MDC. Looking at photos the MDC is medium grey so that’s the colour I used.
The canopy surrounds and arch were done by very carefully masking the rest of the canopy with masking tape and then cutting it away where paint was to go. I can now see why third-party suppliers sell pre-cut paint masks to made this easier.
I wanted to display the Hawk as if parked, so without any aircrew. The kit as supplied had very basic seats, as it came with aircrew figures that would hide any details. I therefore ordered some aftermarket seats; these are 1:48 scale models of the Martin-Baker Mk 10 seats as used in the Hawk and many other UK or UK-built jet fighters from the 1970s and 1980s.
And after painting, by reference to some handy pictures online. I need some even finer brushes!
Here the kit is mostly assembled and painted, seats in but without the canopy.
As you can see I’d started applying the decals at this point. I at first assumed that you’d have to very carefully paint the white strips (and underside arrow pattern) on but on but the kit turned out to include white decals for these parts. Sad to relate, though, they were pretty awful. For one thing, they were too thin and came up pink and speckled on the red paint. For another, they really didn’t fit well around the various bumps and protuberances of the Hawk, especially the flap actuators under the wing. The only option there was to cut the decals up to fit around them, and paint the actuators, but this looked awful and getting paint and decals to match was impossible.
I did the metal parts of the undercarriage with Humbrol Metalcote aluminium spray. Here I’ve masked the outer part of the wheels so as to spray metal paint only on the hubs.
Finished kit with initial varnish and final decals added, but before further varnishing. I actually managed to lose the pitot tube (the spike on the nose) but a needle was more realistic-looking and actually far better scale in terms of diameter than the plastic rod that came with the kit!
Normally detail model making involves lots of weathering to make a model look more realistic. This is pretty easy in this case because the Red Arrows keep their Hawks spick and span! The only weathering I did was a little bit of dark paint smeared over the top of the spine behind the auxiliary power unit exhaust. Unusually for a modern military aircraft they have a high-gloss surface finish so I applied two further layers of Humbrol Clear. I at first tried airbrushing this but in fact it turns out that it self-levels so well (i.e. any brush marks flatten out) that you can get a perfectly good finish by just painting on further layers with a large brush.
And here is the result:
What did I learn from this?
1. Test-assemble the entire kit first before gluing it. And if a bit doesn’t fit well, file and sand it until it does – don’t force it!
2. It’s actually easier to build the cockpit first, add the canopy, mask it and paint it. Trying to add the canopy later makes it very difficult to match the paint on the canopy edges with the adjacent fuselage.
3. Check reviews of the same kit before you build it to look for handy tips and warnings. It turned out that other model builders had commented on the awful decals for this set and had I known I might have had a go at painting the white bits instead or have ordered a third party (and maybe more up to date) set of decals.
4. If you’re going to use third party components, order them in time for you to start building. That way you can stick to the manufacturer’s recommended assembly order, which has probably been arrived at for a reason. The seats could really have done with going in when I first build the cockpit.
Overall though I’m pleasantly pleased with the result. I think my next project will have to wait until after we’ve got our house move out of the way, though.
The first step was to build the cockpit. Here’s the cockpit as assembled, but without seats for the moment.
Painted grey, and with a dark wash to bring out the details in the instrument and switch panels.
Further painting to replicate the black instrument panel, together with dry-brushing to highlight details. This is when you put a bit of contrasting paint on a brush, wipe almost all of it off, then brush lightly over the base colour. The effect is to bring out surface detail.
Cockpit installed inside fuselage half, with matching other half of fuselage, and interior of cockpit wall painted. Note also a couple of small nuts glued in the nose to ensure that the model sits with its nosewheel on the ground. Plastic models don’t have the same weight distribution as the real thing and if you’re not careful you can end up with a plane that wants to sit on its tail.
Fuselage halves joined and wing added. I spent some time filing down the seam with progressively finer sanders to get a smooth finish. However, this is where things went a bit wrong. The fuselage was a bit of a tight fit into the wing, but I forced it in. This was a mistake as the effect was to bend the wings down. This is called anhedral when it is meant to happen and a ‘a bit of a cock up’ when it’s not. I was able to rescue the model with application of lots of very hot water to soften the plastic followed by some careful bending.
Primer applied. I used Halfords Plastic Primer, which is relatively cheap, comes in a big spray tin, and seems to work very well – a lot of model-makers recommend it. Priming really starts to bring out the panel lines; it also highlights any seams you’ve not filed smooth!
The intakes come separately on the Airfix model and need painting first so as they’d be very awkward to paint once assembled.
At this point my earlier mistake came back to haunt me. The distortion introduced at the wing root was still there and this made the intake fit very bad. Lots of plastic filler had to be applied and sanded down.
Here’s the result, sanded and with more primer. I wasn’t very happy with the result but it was clear that getting a completely smooth join from intake to fuselage would be very difficult thanks to the distortion.
Having painted the nosewheel bay and the inside of the intakes I had to protect them. The cockpit I’d covered with masking tape but for these bits a cut-up foam ear plug worked very well.
Airbrushed with red paint, specifically Humbrol 238 that is the specific Red Arrows shade. I am finding that it’s hard to get a really good finish with Humbrol acrylics via the airbrush; here, I got a little bit of orange-peeling. The Lifecolor paints recommended on the airbrush course I did do seem to give smoother and better results, but here I needed the particular colour.
Now for the canopy. The Hawk ejection system doesn’t jettison the canopy but instead uses miniature detonating cord (MDC) embedded in the canopy to shatter it just before the ejection seats fire through it. I thought that painting this would be a nightmare but I found a handy article online that noted that the MDC pattern is in fact moulded as a slight recess in the inside of the canopy. So, if you brush the inside with paint and then immediately wipe it off, some will be retained in the recessed mould, giving the appearance of the MDC. Looking at photos the MDC is medium grey so that’s the colour I used.
The canopy surrounds and arch were done by very carefully masking the rest of the canopy with masking tape and then cutting it away where paint was to go. I can now see why third-party suppliers sell pre-cut paint masks to made this easier.
I wanted to display the Hawk as if parked, so without any aircrew. The kit as supplied had very basic seats, as it came with aircrew figures that would hide any details. I therefore ordered some aftermarket seats; these are 1:48 scale models of the Martin-Baker Mk 10 seats as used in the Hawk and many other UK or UK-built jet fighters from the 1970s and 1980s.
And after painting, by reference to some handy pictures online. I need some even finer brushes!
Here the kit is mostly assembled and painted, seats in but without the canopy.
As you can see I’d started applying the decals at this point. I at first assumed that you’d have to very carefully paint the white strips (and underside arrow pattern) on but on but the kit turned out to include white decals for these parts. Sad to relate, though, they were pretty awful. For one thing, they were too thin and came up pink and speckled on the red paint. For another, they really didn’t fit well around the various bumps and protuberances of the Hawk, especially the flap actuators under the wing. The only option there was to cut the decals up to fit around them, and paint the actuators, but this looked awful and getting paint and decals to match was impossible.
I did the metal parts of the undercarriage with Humbrol Metalcote aluminium spray. Here I’ve masked the outer part of the wheels so as to spray metal paint only on the hubs.
Finished kit with initial varnish and final decals added, but before further varnishing. I actually managed to lose the pitot tube (the spike on the nose) but a needle was more realistic-looking and actually far better scale in terms of diameter than the plastic rod that came with the kit!
Normally detail model making involves lots of weathering to make a model look more realistic. This is pretty easy in this case because the Red Arrows keep their Hawks spick and span! The only weathering I did was a little bit of dark paint smeared over the top of the spine behind the auxiliary power unit exhaust. Unusually for a modern military aircraft they have a high-gloss surface finish so I applied two further layers of Humbrol Clear. I at first tried airbrushing this but in fact it turns out that it self-levels so well (i.e. any brush marks flatten out) that you can get a perfectly good finish by just painting on further layers with a large brush.
And here is the result:
What did I learn from this?
1. Test-assemble the entire kit first before gluing it. And if a bit doesn’t fit well, file and sand it until it does – don’t force it!
2. It’s actually easier to build the cockpit first, add the canopy, mask it and paint it. Trying to add the canopy later makes it very difficult to match the paint on the canopy edges with the adjacent fuselage.
3. Check reviews of the same kit before you build it to look for handy tips and warnings. It turned out that other model builders had commented on the awful decals for this set and had I known I might have had a go at painting the white bits instead or have ordered a third party (and maybe more up to date) set of decals.
4. If you’re going to use third party components, order them in time for you to start building. That way you can stick to the manufacturer’s recommended assembly order, which has probably been arrived at for a reason. The seats could really have done with going in when I first build the cockpit.
Overall though I’m pleasantly pleased with the result. I think my next project will have to wait until after we’ve got our house move out of the way, though.
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Date: 2015-03-11 12:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-03-09 08:15 am (UTC)