Finished: 1/144 Panavia Tornado IDS aircraft

Hi folks,

Another rush job for the large game I attended at the end of July. These two strike aircraft are Battlefront repackaged Revell kits - something that Battlefront moved to due to the cost, fragility and complexity of their older resin aircraft. 

The models came with Battlefront decals for the Luftwaffe, as currently the Dutch in Team Yankee have no organic air support. I do have a distant notion to get a couple of 1/144 F-16s for my collection in the future, but for now these jets will do. 

As a child of the 80's, these bits of kit were always iconic. The area I was born in was regularly buzzed by a variety of RAF and other NATO aircraft, and these things at that time were top of the line. Futuristic, with their swing wings, speed and payload they were perhaps my favourite aircraft of the period. I definitely felt old when these started being retired from service by the RAF. 

They did see the table at the gaming day - but not my table. So the above shot is a propaganda pic after the fact. When they did make an appearance, one was downed by soviet AAA, while the other was taken out by tank self defence AA fire... the fate of most newly painted aircraft models!

Kit wise, these were easy enough to build, though not of great quality. I decided to include the plastic missiles, as well as the BF resin cluster munitions dispenser. the model also comes with a BF resin solid cockpit. Dave helped me out by kindly airbrushing the camo, which I put a wash over and attempted to highlight. Decals were then added, and I decided not to weather these as they look cooler nice and fresh on aircraft. 

Air support wise, I've only a couple of German Helicopters to finish - which hopefully will be just as quick as these pair turned out to be. 

Completed Hawker Typhoon 1/144

I've spend the last week and a bit working on getting the various infantry models I had to a finished state. I'm pretty happy with them now, with the matt varnish going on them last night. I'll do another coat just to make sure they are nice and covered (and non shiny) probably tomorrow night. Then they can go on the shelf until the various guns and vehicles are completed. I am still aiming to try working on these a unit at a time rather than doing my normal process of getting all the models to a set stage before starting the next stage.

So tonight I also aimed to finish off my Hawker Typhoon. The plan had been to use some decals I had got to do the invasion stripes. Alas, these didn't work out the way I had hoped. I had to revert to hand painting them - and unless you look too closely, they look ok (at least, I think!).

When I took these pics the decal fix under the roundels on the wings hadn't dried yet, so they still look a little messy. Unfortunately between finishing the model and typing this my phone has decided to update to iOS7, so no more pics tonight.

Still, I am pleased with it, and I think that for a model that cost me less than £3 it's not too bad!

Here is the model alongside the decals I was planning on using:

The final version (as my phone is now working):

1:144 Hawker Typhoon

This week, in addition to getting my infantry army painter varnished and ready for highlighting, I have been working on my Jocks air support.

This comes in the form of a Hawker Typhoon, possibly one of my favourite WW2 aircraft. One of the few stories my grandfather told me about his wartime experiences was of watching these aircraft swooping down in near vertical dives to unleash their rockets on German positions.

This model was one I picked up earlier this year for less than £3. It's been assembled for a while, and being such a low cost model, it's not a great fit. I spent some time with it trying to fill in the gaps, but not too sure I made a great job of it.

So, here's the photos:

First, the underside - the aircraft had been sprayed Matt black primer. The underside was then painted in Sky Gray (Vallejo Model Color 70.989). This took a coat or two. The plastic kit doesn't have the detail of the Battlefront model, and you can still see where I filled in the landing gear spaces with green stuff.

Next I used London Grey (Vallejo Model Color 70.836) trying to follow the patterns from the pictures I found online. Apparently the camo by this stage in the war was applied in the factory using rubber masks, so it was more or less standardised.

I then

I then filled the gaps in with Reflective Green (Vallejo Model Color 70.890). One of the difficult parts was getting the line between the underside and the top colours right. I also had to decide what colour to do the guns - I couldn't tell from the pics whether these were a gunmetal colour, so I decided just to go for the camo colour that was nearest them.

A pic of the almost finished Tiffie. The guide I had said there was a sky blue band around the fuselage before the tail - I didn't lighten the blue I used enough, but I am still happy with the shade. I may lighten it later. The rockets I used Russian Uniform for (Vallejo Model Color 70.924) and for the propeller and leading edge of the wings Flat Yellow (Vallejo Model Color 70.953). The exhaust outlets were done in Brass (Vallejo Model Color 70.801). For the rocket pylons I decided to go with the base Sky Grey underside colour. Propeller blade were tidied up in black, and the canopy was painted on using Russian Uniform and some of the dark blue colour just on the black of the canopy. The tail wheel also was touched up in black. I've still the decals to apply, which will include the black and white invasion stripes.

Below are some shots of the model so far - I have still to decide on a wash (I am considering Army Painter mid tone).

Not the tidiest paint job ever!