Thank you Dave.
With the fuselage and tailplane largely complete, it was time to work on the wing and here I’ll focus on the techniques used. For the paint scheme’s rationale, I would refer readers to the notes which accompany the completed model in the
Show us your Fokker E.V thread. It is certainly not my intention to try and teach anyone to suck eggs, rather just to show my approach. Any faults or errors are, of course mine alone.
Having decided to try and replicate bands of coloured wood stain, streakily applied rather than an overall olive drab, my preferred approach was to use oil colours over a white base. The oils used are from the
Rembrandt extra fine range (I have a small box of ten colours), plus a tube of
Sennelier extra fine sap green. The shades I was aiming to recreate - though I recognise with limited success, are those shown in the Ronny Barr illustrations and the comparative colour charts in Volume 2 of the excellent Achim Sven Engels’ (Fokker Team – Schorndorf)
Fokker D.VIII in Detail. Shown below are the scrap art paper/card mixing palettes. Clearly some of the colours played no part in the final outcomes and others were little more than a touch.
IMG_4856 by
nigeljjackson, on Flickr
The point about using oils is that they are easy to mix and you can lift excess paint and reapply if necessary to achieve the effect you want. This is a benefit of what can be an incredibly slow drying time. However, the drying speed can be increased considerably by mixing in a very small amount of white spirit. Care is needed because using too much will negate the very quality you are seeking to capitalise on - the time oils give you to work on the surface finish. In terms of the overall mix, I wanted something the consistency of something that would never have any hope running.
Having marked out the boundaries of the first underwing colour with masking tape, I applied some lines of colour with an old thickish brush. The strokes were parallel with the masking tape and each line was separated by a couple of clean brush widths. I started very close to but not quite against the masking tape (to avoid a big build up of paint at the junction), and worked from left to right. With this done, the effect almost looked like blue and white zebra stripes!
The next stage was to use a trusty wide, stiff brush - one that I use for dry brushing, and dragging it straight along each line of colour. Some of what was picked up was wiped off the brush, but what remained was then dragged alongside and parallel to the first line of colour. The same thing was done again until the next thick line of colour was reached where the whole process was repeated. Regularly wiping the brush dry (keeping away from the white spirits) and revisiting each of the streaks made it possible to get the blend and effect I was after. A bonus was that the brushing left a nice thin covering of colour and an even surface.
Nervous as ever, I left things a day or two before attempting to apply the second colour. When I was absolutely sure that the first was dry, I deliberately applied some hopelessly untacky masking tape I had in the garage. The aim was to prevent accidental over brushing with the new colour without running the risk of strong adhesion removing any of the blue. In the photo, I have yet to apply anything to delineate the ailerons, that will come later, or to ensure that the different bands of colour had no tiny white gaps between them.
IMG_4503 by
nigeljjackson, on Flickr
Here we have an overview of things, and now we also have the undercarriage in place, which proved a nice secure fit.
IMG_4619 by
nigeljjackson, on Flickr
With the wing under surface done, the process was repeated for the upper surface of the wing.
IMG_4737 by
nigeljjackson, on Flickr
However, disaster is just around the corner..... Mysterious eh?
Best wishes
Nigel
