A Colorful Moth ** Finished **

[Migrant]

Looking good John, I like the polished cowl, nice touch.

[JohnRatzenberger]

Good News !! I put the sunburst decals on the upper wing and they cover the orange very well. I can also fit the rudder sun burst on the stabs, but really wish I had a second set so I could do both.

Anyway, I'll be back to work on this. I'll do a photo tomorrow.

[JohnRatzenberger]

As promised ....



I do wish I had two sets of tail decals, it would look so cool. Maybe I'll just do one of them and order another decal set sometime.

Anyway, I'm now putting the cabanes under the main wing. They are extremely fragile and it will take me a day just to let the repaired pieces glue up well. All I can say is be very, very gentle taking them off the sprue, but even then I suspect luck is necessary.

Anyway, I'll plod along through Sunday then kick into high gear for a grand finish

[Migrant]

Looks good John. Couldn't you mask and paint the sunburst on the rudder?

[PaulBradley]

Very nice, John!

[JohnRatzenberger]

Looks good John. Couldn't you mask and paint the sunburst on the rudder?

Sure, if I were you .

Actually trying to match paint colors to decal colors would probably be my downfall. If the orange had shown through the decal then Plan B was to use the decals as a template - and probably what I should have done regardless once I got all agonized over stab vs rudder. So much for bright & cheery (attitude).

[JohnRatzenberger]

Well, I had a thought. Since the tail isn't right next to the wing, I probably could get away with a slight color mismatch of painted sunburst versus decaled ... and Vallejo has some very close colors in both Model Color and Game Color.

So I painted a stick of plastic orange and then tried to overpaint a yellow - coverage is terrible, I'm afraid I'm just going to get a thick coat of yellow or edges along the masking. Not working, have to try again, but time is running out.

[Migrant]

That's a pity John. Two possible solutions: strip the rudder, paint it yellow, mask off the sunburst and spray orange. Or if the rudder's already orange, mask off the sunburst and spray a white undercoat, then apply yellow. Both involve extra work and time, unfortunately...

[JohnRatzenberger]

Thanks !
First my Moth is hand-painted, although spraying may be a better idea here to build up coverage. I even had a plan to use that fancy Tamiya-tape masking sheet you told us about, and which I bought, to make my masks from the decal template. I think I need to ensure my Vallejo was well shook and perhaps play around a bit, I was doing things a bit on the fly.

Oh to have an LMS with the XTradecal sheet on hand right next door ...

[JamesPerrin]

Those wings just make me think of Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang

[JohnRatzenberger]

Well, I tried some mixes and got further away from what I wanted.
It's the 29th, we have a house guest (SWMBO's BFF) just arrived, so I really need to just focus on a finish here.

If I repaint the rudder blue I do have a white checkerboard that would complement the white serial on the side - giving me blue/white and orange/yellow fairly consistently.

Must stop fiddling about ....

[JohnRatzenberger]

Stop agonizing - I went with the original plan, and if I get a 2nd set of decals, I'll put them on the stab ....





I'll be moving along once the setting solution dries well ....

[AndrewR]

To get good intensity with Vallejo yellows, prime with their sand coloured primer first. Then it's no problem.

It's certainly looking bright and cheery!

[JohnRatzenberger]

Thanks, I'll file that away for another time - still learning.

[PaulBradley]

Goodness - it's a flying Arizona state flag.....!