1/48 Hasegawa BF-109 G-6

1/72 Hasegawa Bf-109 G-6

Erich Hartmann’s Bf-109

by Michal Sekula

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Here are my two attempts to build a kit of Erich Hartmann’s Messerschitt Bf-109. There is a lot of articles about Bf-109 here in ARC and as I am not a "Luftwaffe Expert" I would not bring anything new. Hartmann with his score 352 victories is on the top of all fighter aces of all time. He was moved to Eastern front and he flew his first combat mission on October 1942. He opened his score on 5th November 1942 by shooting down one Il-2 Stormovik. By the end of the WWII, he needed only two and half years to achieve the highest score among aces. 

Bf-109 "White 1"

The first kit represents Bf-109 G-6 belonged to Hartmann from October 1944, the time after his 307th victory.

 

 

The kit was build approximately 3 years ago and has started my collection of the WWII top fighter aces planes.

The kit

The kit is from the Hasegawa production in the 1:48 scale. PE parts from Eduard we added to the cockpit. Painted cooper wires represent brake lines and a circle antenna behind the cockpit, a wire antenna is made from a hair.

 

For me the most important criteria is how the kit looks on the shelf. So I rather spent my time by the gathering info about the right camouflage and marking then checking the kit dimensions, surface panel lines etc. against blue prints.  That is why I found out too late that the circle antenna should not be there.

 

I have borrowed the digital Olympus camera from my friend to make some shots of my kits. That evening, when camera was already returned, I viewed made pictures in my computer. Till now I saw that wire antenna was broken. Again confirmed that hair is too sensitive to handle with little/no care.

 

Assembling

I will avoid description of the kit assembling, how parts fit etc. as it was a time ago and I do not remember all details.

Painting

The basic camouflage scheme was airbrushed, all details with different colors (interior, landing gears etc. were brushed. Dark green spots, part of camoflage scheme, were also brushed. I used Humbrol and Revell enamels, all colors were mixed.

 

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Markings

For the standard Luftwaffe marking as crosses and stencils were used original decals comming with kit. Black part of the fuselage cross was overpainted with dark green. White strip on the spinner, white 1, white – and swastika were used from my spares box. All oher parts of the Hartmann’s personal marking were brushed: red heart with "Usch" and black tulip leaves on the fuselage nose.

For tulip I tried following technique. I prepared the template and then I slightly used razor-blade to make very thin border lines of black inside and white outline of the tulip. Then I firstly carefully hand painted white outline with the focus to make straight the outer line. After paint was dry I hand painted black inside of the tulip. Black color covered imperfections on the inner side of the white line. The thinned color itself followed lines. I use this technique when I have to hand paint usually straight patterns. I use masking only for airbrushing. After some practising it works for me quite well.

Then I outlined panel lines by a pencil and airbrushed mixture of matt and semi gloss finish. After it was dry I brushed tulip, heart and the other marking details by very thinned mixture of the finish with the different ratio of matt and semi gloss.

 

Weathering

All weathering is brushed by very thinned mixture of matt Sand, Dark Earth and Black enamel with the required ratio. Somewhere more brown, elsewhere more black.

I like this approach because it makes the kit surface not so homogeneous.

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Bf-109 "Yellow 1"

The second kit represents Bf-109 G-6 belonged to Hartmann from October 1943, the time after his 121st victory.

The kit

The kit is from the Hasegawa production in the 1:72 scale. Kit was built OTB without any aftermarket parts added. Only decals that came with kit were used. The kit was built just for pleasure, only as a basement for painting another Hartmann camouflage. 

 

 

For painting, marking and weathering were used the same techniques as for the previous kit.

 

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Taking Photos

All pictures were taken on the balcony during a sunny day. The kits were placed on the A1 white paper sheet. The first shots were taken in the direct sun light, but the kits were too dark because of the white background and my limited abilities to use all features of the borrowed digital camera. Then I tried to placed them into the shadow and take some pictures in the indirect light. After short experimenting I was pleased with the results. Planes looked quite well for me and, moreover, there were no sharp shadows of the plane on the background.

References

 

I hope you all enjoy them.

Misos

Photos and text © by Michal Sekula