Daz's Maltese Falcon - **FINISHED**

[iggie]

As ever, fast work Daren!

And Shawshank; could there be a better book? (Yes, I know you are watching the film, but the book is even better.....)

[DazDaMan]

All the build work is done:



You can't see it here, but I've just put a layer of aluminium paint on the undersides. Revell Aqua-colour, as always.

[DazDaMan]

Undersides are done. First upper side coat on:

[jssel]

Very nice.

[DazDaMan]

Top sand colour done:


Tonight's entertainment is this:


I should have the camouflage done by the end of the night, in time for final assembly and decals tomorrow morning.

[DazDaMan]

Painting the brown bits in:


I've been using a method for a while, where I paint on the lighter colours, then pencil in the outline of where the darker colours will go. Works for me.

Anyway.... One of the things that drives me mental about these Malta Story Spitfires, is that they don't have authentic camouflage schemes! Rather, they have a very approximate rendition of what the actual aircraft would look like:





My aircraft is the one in the background of these shots.

Even more infuriating is that there is so little in the way of references available online - these are all screen-grabs from the film itself! Not only that, but nobody really knows which aircraft is which out of the three low-back variants that were made available to the film-makers!

[fredk]

Thats come on nice and speedy like.
At least you won't have to fuss with air-frame codes on this one.

[TimJ]

That's come together quickly, keep up the good work.

[DazDaMan]

OK, so after a crap night's sleep, I'm back on it this morning.

Thats come on nice and speedy like.
At least you won't have to fuss with air-frame codes on this one.

Thank God! Makes this build a bit easier!!

[DazDaMan]

I've got this on in the background...

[DazDaMan]

Painting done, undercarriage attached....


Prop fitted....


There is one final detail that needs to be done, but it's not a necessity for this.

Anyway, decals next. Shouldn't take too long!

[Old_Tonto]

Just catching up with this one Daz. Going great guns.

Do you have the worlds stash of these Heller Spitfire kits?

[DazDaMan]

Just catching up with this one Daz. Going great guns.

Do you have the worlds stash of these Heller Spitfire kits?

Not quite - This is actually the last one in my stash! Just means I **might** need to get another one or two....

Anyway, while I have lunch, I'm going to start watching this film before setting to work on the decals....

[DazDaMan]

And she is.... DONE!



As always, the Heller kit builds up nice enough, although the undercarriage legs need some amount of care(!). The only non-standard item on this one is the canopy, which is actually the spare from the Airfix Mk.22 kit that I built previously.

The colour scheme on this one was a challenge, by virtue of the fact that I had few references for it, but it came good after some faffing about.

Now to add it to my collection of movie models!

Better photos to follow soon.

[DazDaMan]

Better photos....



















The grey splodges on the undersides of the wings are where they painted over the roundels and serial numbers prior to filming. You can clearly see this in a few shots.

The decals are all from the spares box, as is the slipper tank that the film's aircraft were all equipped with for a couple of scenes. The fin flash is actually from a Dutch Spitfire decal sheet, put up the "right" way on the model.