1/48 Tamiya Spitfire MkI

Gallery Article by Scotty Diamond on Oct 23 2009

 

I built this diorama for a friend at work who wanted a Spitfire to display with a few other planes he has in office.  I decided to make it a Battle of Britain diorama since I had the ICM RAF Pilots and Ground Personnel set and hadn't made a diorama before. 

This is the first time I've built the Tamiya Spitfire kit and it virtually fell together when I dumped it out of the box.  All I added to the plane was a seat harness from Eduard and some Eagle Strike RAF Roundels since I felt the ones in the kit were too thick.  I used Polly Scale paints for the topside RAF Dark Earth and Dark Green, and Gunze Aqueous Sky for the underside.  The interior is Model Master RAF Interior Green with assorted other Model Master paints.  I masked the pattern freehand using the kit's instructions as a guide with Blu-tack putty before airbrushing (another first for me that I'll continue to use).

After painting I coated the kit with 2 coats of Future for a smooth glossy finish to settled the decals on.  Then 2 more coats of Future and I left it sealed in plastic tub for two days to cure before a wash of Tamiya NATO Black for the panel lines and fuel stains on the top of the cowl.  Then a final coat of Testor Dullcote for a matt finish and she was ready for weathering.

Since the plane was marked for one early in the Battle of Britain and I was making it for someone else I didn't want to beat it up too much so I kept the weathering down.  The exhaust and gun smoke stains were made with brown/gray and black pastels respectively.  I outlined some panels (ammo access, cowling panels, etc.) with a silver pencil to show they were getting opened more frequently than others for getting the plane back in the fight as soon as possible, and chipped the paint at the wing root, cockpit sill, and in other places along the wing leading edges and rivets the same way.  I peck at the surface with the pencil - it looks more like chipping than drawing and scribbling does.

The antenna was made with 2lb test monofilament (and blobs of CA glue for insulators) and the IFF wires on the stabilizers with fine brass wire. 

Click on images below to see larger images

  

For the two pilot figures I picked the two from the cover and positioned them so they would look like they had just returned from a fight and one of them was describing his action to the other as they walked away from his plane..."So there I was, when Jerry tried to climb away I let him have it...."

The two figures went together with a minimum of fuss and only a little putty needed to smooth out the shoulder joints.  The set is full of really great figures with a lot of animation to them.  I have ICM's other sets and this one is by far the best so far.

The figures were painted with Polly Scale and Tamiya paints and washed until I could get all the shading right.  Then I gave them a light drybrushing to get the folds in the uniforms to stand out.  This is more important than most people realize when painting figures this small - it really helps to "help" the shadows and highlights pop out.

For the base I used a pine craft base I bought at a (you guessed it) a local craft store and stained it cherry.  I sealed it with a few coats of high gloss varnish and painted a circle in the middle with green acrylic craft paint.  I sprinkled a mix of green and brown model railroad turf and let it dry.  Then I shook off the excess, masked off the edge, and sprayed down some diluted white glue before sprinkling down more turf to cover the spots than didn't stick the first time.  After this dried overnight I shook off the excess and glued the plane and figures to the base.

Next up will be a Hurricane with the rest of the figures from the box.

Scotty Diamond

Photos and text © by Scotty Diamond