[Robert_Kavnik]

Hello, I'm putting together a Seafire, and here is how far I've got til now









Now here are some questions:
Does the pilot I just painted look ANYTHING like a RAF 1940 pilot?









And another few questions:
This is supposed to be a Seafire, can I make it look like a Spitfire Mk.I. by not adding canons or the canon ammo hatch thing and other stuff or will it still be a Seafire (for some reason it doesn't have the arresting hook on it)?

Which Revell paint should I use to paint it like a Battle Of Britain one (The brown and green scheme)?

Thank you for your help.

[P/O W. 'Moggy' Cattermole]

Yes, the pilot looks pretty good really. If I saw that, i'd know he was raf. However, you can get a lot more detail on a 1/32 figure, though i understand that his paint scheme is a very basic one at the moment.

If i were being really picky, I'd say the blue is a bit too bright, the colour of the RAF's blue is a bit more dull and slightly darker, like this, as the blue on the pilot is his RAF uniform.

I'm not sure about a Spitfire mkI being a conversion of a seafire, though you could probably get away with converting the seafire into a MkIX, though i'm no expert on these things.
For paints for the BoB scheme, i'd suggest Olive green and dark earth, both Matt colours. For the underside of the aircraft, Duck Egg Blue is good, although i think at the time, the official scheme was black and white on the underside, one half of the aircraft black and the other half white. Some squadrons unofficially replaced this with duck egg blue though.

I can only give Humbrol paint numbers, but i have a chart which has the equivilent paint numbers for other brands:

Olive green = Humbrol paints 30 = No apparent Revell equivilent
Dark Earth = Humbrol paints 29 = Revell paints 87
Duck Egg... = Humbrol paints 23 = No apparent Revell equivilent

[Robert_Kavnik]

Thank you guys, I won't go into that much of detail since this is my first model that I really want to make fully painted and I don't have that many paints.

And the pilot looks a bit darker without the light or flash, will try to get one at day light. It is not the bset though, as the local store didn't have any Grey Blue paints I think he would look perfect with that one. :evil:



P.S.
I will try dry brushing the engine and the exhaust pipes. Thanks for that idea!

[redfox]

Pilots uniform is far too bright. During BOB most pilots wore No 2 uniform (battledress) which was a grey-blue. At 1/32 scale highlights should be darker as greases in uniform always appear darker. In true fighters pilots fashion top button was always undone. If it was very warm (middle of summer) jacket might be discarded, displaying a light blue shirt almost faded to white with too many washes. Or a white polo neck sweater if it was colder or operating over the sea. Gloves could be black or brown as many pilots purchased their own. Flying boots were normally of 1936 pattern and were black. Sculpt the model's face to be younger as the majority of these pilots were only boys. Enjoy your modelling.

[Robert_Kavnik]

Hello again.

I took another picture of the pilot after painting his boots black (thank you for reminding me redfox). I (like to) think that he looks better during daylight:


I did try to dry brush the engine and some stuff in the cockpit, what do you think about my first attempt?

The engine, I put some silver and brown on it. Silver is not that visiable:


This is the cockpit, I made it with metallic grey:


And this is the other side of it:

:roll:

[Bentley]

both the pilot and engine are looking nice!

i've found some paint numbers that might help:

Olive green: revell 32361 (its all they've got and the FS number points towards a panzergrun)
Dark Earth: revell 32182 (F505252)
Duck egg green: revell 32159 (i couldnt find duck egg green on the revell paint list so i put in sky, close to duck egg green)

most people prefer olive green to dark green for RAF models, but if you want to do a dark green
dark green: Revell 32139 (F505056)

[.041 Safety Wire]

I think most merlins were painted gloss black and the exhaust stacks are too red, they were made from inconel or monel and the heat normally causes them to turn a dark redish brown.