I was sidetracked for awhile with an AMPS review project, but since getting back to my Snipe, I've made some progress, but not without continually shooting myself in the foot along the way. Rather than employing post-shading this time around, I decided to airbrush a slightly darker shade of CDL between the ribs on the underside surfaces to see how that looked.
All in all, I rather like the effect, so I decided to continue on with it. Notice how I shot the wrong side of the aileron though.
This was my first shot in the foot. Based on the following reference image, it appears to me that the under-surface wing tips are a different colour and I decided it was blue.
Note also the wide wrap-arounds framing the painted wingtips, which I also tried to reproduce.
Based on this reference image, the tips on the horizontal stabilizer are painted what appears to be a darker colour than the fuselage band. I decided the tips were red, so I carried that over onto the wings also. The top surfaces are Doped Aluminum which is a mixture of Tamiya Flat Aluminum and Sky Gray.
There is also some piping evident around the rudder and fin so I decided it was red too. I used a Sharpie to lay the colour down and I'm happy with the result. There's no way I could've done it as well as this with a brush or masking tape.
With the wings well on the way, I finished off the interior of the fuselage with some bracing at the tail end. I eventually removed the tail skid as it was getting in the way and I was afraid I'd break it. I'll add it later.
After gluing the fuselage halves together I threw caution to the wind and installed the cowling/doghouse. Hmmm . . . anyone see something wrong here? Maybe a gaping empty area behind the pilot's seat perhaps? Shot in the foot x2.
Yes indeed, I neglected to install the bulkhead behind the seat!
There was no way to gently pry the cowling off so I resorted to repetitively scribing the seams until it finally came off. Note that the bulkhead is now firmly in place. I cleaned up the seams and made the best of a bad situation.
With the fuselage fully assembled, I used masking tape and my airbrush to add the red and white striping. Then I shot the rear with Doped Aluminum, and determining that the fuselage band was blue, shot that colour also. It wasn't until I had removed all of the masking that I discovered that I had one too many red and white stripes. I can't for the life of me explain how I did that aside from pure carelessness. Shot in the foot x3.
There was nothing for it but to mask off the offending stripes and re-shoot blue over them. Everything went swimmingly until I suddenly realized that I could see the outlines of the stripes I had painted over.
Shot in the foot x4.
This time I sanded down the offending lines, re-masked yet again, and re-shot the blue. I think this time I have it pretty well fixed.
So, bit by bit, I'm fumbling along towards completion.
Thanks for dropping by!
Cheers,
Chris
