Karls's Hi-talian Helldiver **Now operational**

[carlos]

As mentioned in the build proposal thread - this is a stalled Airfix Helldiver from a couple of years ago.
It was originally going to be done in the supplied French Naval scheme....
But instead, it will now be done in Italian markings, with decals courtesy of Italeri's Veltro kit.
I'm thinking either overall sand, and green blotches, with white fuselage band, and light grey underside.
Or maybe. a sand/green disruptive camo pattern for the uppers, with yellow fuselage band and engine cowling.

Current state of the kit, masked and primed.


And the decals...

[Ian]

I think either scheme would look good on this, Carlos!

[carlos]

Underside colour is on - though it's not that easy to see on top of the primer.
Tamiya XF-19 - Sky grey.



It's a little easier to see the difference between underside and primer in this pic.


U/C and bomb doors are only held in with blu-tack at the moment - to mask the wells, and also get their coat of grey - I may or may not open the bomb doors, undecided at the moment.

Next colour, after masking, will be the main uppers - XF-59, desert yellow
Front end of the cowling will be yellow, and I'm still undecided on the camo pattern.
And as for the exact shade of green to use - anyone know which Tamiya acrylic is best for Italian WW2..?
Of the greens I already have.... at the moment I'm torn between, XFs.... 26 (deep green), 58 (olive) and 81 (RAF WW2 dk green.

Gonna have a bit practice doing smoke-ring camo, and will go for that if I think I can get away with it - failing that, I might try a blotch pattern - depends how the practice goes - LOL

[Ian]

I think you could get away with either 26 or 81 for the green.
Before you start painting the smoke rings simply drink 12 cans of Red Bull and try to hold your brush in one spot on the model. With all the shaking going on you're bound to end up with some cracking rings!





Joking aside, don't drink 12 cans of Red Bull.

[carlos]

Joking aside, don't drink 12 cans of Red Bull.

LOL - I prefer Orange Relentless anyway


Have had a big problem, and a few days ago I thought I would have to declare a DNF.

Last week, I got the base 'Desert Yellow' on the uppers, and had been practicing some camo patterns on scrap - then while cleaning my airbrush, I dropped it - it landed rear-first, and broke the needle chuck
Had an idea today though, and it seems to have worked... kinda... at least temporarily.

Before


After


It isn't perfect - there's a little bit of slippage with use - but at least it is usable - even to the point where I've been able to accomplish a mottled camo pattern of sorts.

Is there anything that blu-tack isn't useful for..???

[carlos]

Here's how far I've got today:
First of all, the mottled 'splodge' camo pattern - The splodges have ended up bigger than I would have preferred, but that's because my cobbled-together airbrush was occasionally spitting out a spot or two of paint if I started a mottle after the needle had slipped out a little.
As a result, some of the mottles had to be bigger, in order to cover the startup splashes, so I just made all the mottles a bit bigger, to match them up.
I don't think it's too bad though - and with this being a 'whiffery' build, I suppose strict accuracy isn't too important.

In the end, I've used XF-26 Deep Green for the mottles - it looked the best on my practice bits.


I hurried the drying along with a hairdryer, then masked and sprayed the yellow trim on the cowling.


And with the masking off, it currently looks like this.


Tonight, I'm hoping to get a couple of coats of Klear on it, and the decals.

Just the peripherals to paint and attach after that, I think I'll be doing canopy frames by hand, don't fancy the mammoth masking task, especially with only a few days to go, and a busy weekend already planned.

[aeroplanegripper]

Carlos, that is looking fantastic mate, well done! Love the fix on the airbrush hope you get it sorted.

[AndrewR]

Magic!

Cheers

Andrew

[carlos]

Thanks chaps!

Love the fix on the airbrush hope you get it sorted.

I'm not gonna faff about trying to fix the airbrush properly Mark.
It was just a cheap generic Chinese-made job to get me started, and it's very doubtful I'd be able to get spares.
I'm just going to go 'hairy-stick' style for a bit, until I can get something by a recognised maker - Already got my eye on one by Iwata, with different sized paint-cups.
Then at least if I'm clumsy enough to break that, I'll be able to get spares.

[Dirkpitt289]

Very very well done.

[ShaunW]

That looks great Karl - it's not the price of the airbrush so much as the finger that presses the trigger that counts

[Ian]

I hope you get this one finished today, mate. It's looking stunning in that camo! Really, really nice!

[carlos]

Sorry about the lack of updates, but that very busy weekend I mentioned earlier, really has had me running around like the proverbial insect with a blue rear-end - and I've just not had time to post pictures.

I'm almost there with the Helldiver though, this is how it stands, as of 7pm tonight.



Not a great deal left to do, gotta paint the crew, canopies to attach, and just some general touching-up.
After supper, I'll push on to get done before I hit the sack tonight - though probably won't be weathered, and a final matt-coat is doubtful.

One thing I have to say though - I really wasn't impressed with Italeri's decals.
A fair bit of silvering, even on top of 2 coats of Klear, and weren't too keen to stay in place either.

[Ian]

The wheels are down - leave the crew out!
Go go go!

[Chris]

Hope you make the finish line Carlos, it looks wonderful right now.