1/72 Revell Messerschmidt Me 109K-4

Gallery Article by Eric BADE on June 25 2010

 

Yes you are right, if you find something strange in this title. Revell actually released a Me 109G-10, not a K-4 in the 1/72nd scale. I actually have built a Revell Me 109G-10 previously and it is featured on ARC (follow the link)

http://www.arcair.com/Gal2/1301-1400/Gal1329_Me-109_Bade/00.shtm

Now I wanted another late war 109 and wanted something more elaborate on painting. It is not too hard to alter what still is a decent G-10 kit into a K-4. Just a little filling and sanding then scribing job : that is all mainly in the position of a compartment door on the left side of the rear fuselage.

This project really is a painting project. I am not too familiar with Luftwaffe camouflages but I started to grow an interest in the complicated and less standard late war camos. I felt building a few late war Luftwaffe machines was a good challenge to improve my airbrushing and weathering techniques. Most of my effort was therefore put in the painting of this model.

Although I also have one or two Fine Molds Me 109 G or K in my stash I went the Revell way. I originally thought I would build straight from the box but I am not used to it any longer, so improvement had to find a way. I basically used a salvaged resin cockpit (already painted then I saved some time), resin propeller and spinner (a weak point of the Revell model), resin exhausts and tail wheel and also a few metal parts (antennas mainly).

The rest went fast as I basically built as per instructions. Oh yes, I also cut flaps.

I decided not to correct the excessively wide wheel track of the Revell little 109 and leave the leading edge flaps retracted, all with the aim to keep my little project simple. 

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As I said before I intended to put my effort in painting. I first had to decide what Karl should I build. I looked out for documentation and decals and found at least one Me 109K, “blue 16” which was both portrayed in one of my books (the excellent Japo on the Me 109K) and displayed on one of my decals sheets (Eagle Cal as you might have guessed)

All paints are Gunze acrylics airsprayed with an Aztec airbrush. Paints are thinned with isopropyl alcohol. I do not use any form of pre-shading at all.
I start building up main camouflage according to instructions and available documentation.

Then, you can start the weathering game. I start mixing camouflage shades, or colours close to camouflage shades to start and build up my effects. I also mix these shades with black, white or different greys for panelling (either center of panels or border of panels). This is to progressively build up the patchwork effect.
I do not fear to paint quite early in the building process and as building goes, cement, thinning, filing or whatever will spoil my base colours. Never mind, model paint repairs or touch ups will be used to portray real aircraft repairs. No fear here.
Aircraft is decalled then. I generally do not varnish my model before decalling as I find good quality decals (Microscale or Cartograph films ie most aftermarket decals), softening solutions and the thin grain of acrylic paints make it unnecessary. I generally find varnish layers kill paint effects, kill sheen effects, and make a second satin/matt cote necessary further killing your paint/weathering effects.
Once my decalling is done, panel lines are enhanced with a wash of sepia or dark grey artist oil paint (I tend to avoid black except on flying surfaces hinge lines or very dark camos). Panel lines enhancing also is done on unvarnished surfaces.

* Why oil artist paints? Oil paint solvants (white spirit; turpentine) are not compatible with base acrylic paints and won’t spoil them easily (if painting with enamel paints, prefer water based/acrylic paints or inks to enhance panel lines). Oil paint thinners are used to wipe excess dark wash
* Why unvarnished surfaces? As I said before varnish kills paint effects. Also unvarnished camo paints tend to catch wash grim better when you wipe excess wash and also will build interesting vague border effects whereas gloss varnished surfaces wipe sharply and neatly creating plain straight lines.

You can then start adding dust (artist/modelling powders), oil stains (dragging inks with a finger, dragging thinned artist oil based paints with a thin brush). I observed some quality three view drawings and found out white/light grey vertical lines might improve final aspect. I used this technique for the very first time on this model : thinned while oil paint dragged vertically with a thin brush in dozens of blurred thin vertical lines.

Aircraft is finished with a thin uneven layer of satin varnish. It's kept minimal to seal powders and decals.
* It's uneven because sheen vary on aircraft (sun exposure, oily engine cowlings)
* it's minimal because as said above varnish layers conceal paint/weathering effects
* it's possibly minimal because as written above no previous gloss layer was used so a light spraying is enough to get sheen in the satin/matt range.

As a sum up, weathering is built progressively during the construction process. Time is an ally, because a progressive weathering process will avoid you symmetric and systematic effects.

Eric BADE

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Photos and text © by Eric BADE