guyen2 - Copy by
Eric Bergerud, on Flickr
rt-r! by
Eric Bergerud, on Flickr
This is my rendition of the venerable Academy Nieuport 17. This is my second biplane. When I did my first, the Academy Camel, I stumbled on this site and Des gave me very kind personal tips. And he told me that the Nieuport was worth the candle. So it's been in my stash for six years. I want to try to gain some familiarity with the biplane idiom before moving on to a couple of WNW kits I've acquired. This is a humble build on this forum. so any tips from wiser heads would be most appreciated.
This kit is crude and contains a couple of serious errors and poor instructions, but the basic fit is decent. I picked the fall 1916 Guynemer plane pictured above. The decals fit the plane and I thought the camo scheme more interesting than metallic across the board. (The upper wing doesn't fit the early Nieuport but surgery was not possible on the thick single piece Academy wing - so I'll live with it.) I used a popular WWII aircraft technique called "black basing" to provide a kind of mottled finish with considerable tonal variation under the camo. I used three shades of Vallejo's terrific Metal Colors on the fuselage and lower wings - Dull Aluminum behind the cockpit and on the wings, Semi-Matte Aluminum under the cockpit and Silver on the cowl. The three shades of natural metal is pretty clear on the pic above and more so on several other pics I've seen. I rigged the plane with 2lb P-Line mono and used Gaspatch generic eyelets and Bob's tubing.
I used oil rendering, oil washes, pigments and a very neat acrylic paint perfect for grime from Iwata Com.Art. I hope I weathered the plane acceptably. The old WWI photos aren't as helpful in this regard as I'd like, although I think many of the linen covered surfaces show clear wear. (I'd bet the fabric was often repaired and repainted at the field - I don't know how to duplicate that.) I'm thinking that a WWI rotary is burning a gallon of castor oil every hour, taking off and landing from grass/dirt strips in Europe where it can rain three times a day. Add to that other fluids, gasoline stains and busy ground crew and I'm thinking that the planes would have picked up a kind of patina amplified by the elements in very short order. The great armor modeler Mig Jimenez wisely pointed out that there was no way on earth that you can make a small plastic object look like a big metal one so you might as well think of your model as a canvas. Point taken, but I attempt to make my models look - to the extent possible - how the real artifact appeared. And that frequently means I spend a lot of time making my models look dirty and worn. (My wife doesn't get the idea.) Not sure if I succeeded.
Eric
Some pics below.
front! by
Eric Bergerud, on Flickr
right - Copy by
Eric Bergerud, on Flickr
left by
Eric Bergerud, on Flickr
lft-f! by
Eric Bergerud, on Flickr
lft-r! by
Eric Bergerud, on Flickr
rt-f! by
Eric Bergerud, on Flickr
Top - Copy - Copy by
Eric Bergerud, on Flickr
