Eduard 1/48 I-16

[robemcdonald]

Another airplane. I have always had a soft spot for the diminutive soviet mono plane. I remember doc doing a great build on a 1/72 kit some time ago, so thought I’d try a slightly larger scale Eduard kit


Quite a few schemes to choose from




Sprues

Decals and PE


First step build and paint the fuselage halves



I went off piste with the colour scheme, but you literally can’t see any of it through the tiny cockpit opening.
Next assemble the fuselage

Cockpit assembly

Paint, weathering and PE Harnesess. Also instrument panel as included in the kit made from 3 colour PE parts with a dab do canopy glue for the instrument glass.



Stick it in the fuselage and add some wings


And that’s up to date.

I started on Tuesday, so it’s gone together really quickly.

I’m away with work tonight, so further updates tomorrow evening.

Rob

[dr_gn]

Nice choice and a great start. Not had a bad Eduard kit yet.

[robemcdonald]

Back from Wales so a bit of progress tonight.
A bit more assembly on the nose area and a coat of primer ready for pre-shading tomorrow.

[robemcdonald]

Just a quick question.

1. Any preferences on the scheme I choose? I quite fancy the great one, but it’s likley I’ll go a bit more route one.
2. Doc. If I do go with a green option: what colours did you use?

[dr_gn]

robemcdonald said:

Just a quick question.

1. Any preferences on the scheme I choose? I quite fancy the great one, but it’s likley I’ll go a bit more route one.
2. Doc. If I do go with a green option: what colours did you use?

1) I’d go for scheme A, then again, that’s pretty much what I did.

2) From memory: Topsides Vallejo Model Colour Brown Violet 70.887, undersides Vallejo Air Pale Blue 71008. All preshaded with Tamiya XF-69 NATO Black.

I’m sure you could get the equivalent Pale Blue in Vallejo Model Colour instead of Air. It’s just that I happened to have the Air version already.

[robemcdonald]

Pre-shading done.


Hopefully this will go better than the black base on the B-25

[robemcdonald]

I wanted to make a bit of progress and didn’t have the paints doc mentioned so I mixed my own from X-14 and XF-23 in equal measure. It’s come out ok.

I’ll have a think about the top colour this evening.

[dr_gn]

Looks fine - you don’t need to be too accurate for that method of pre-shading, so long as the lines are separated to some degree and more or less follow the panel lines. Personally I’d reduce the effect further with thinned overcoats, but whatever.

Absolute accuracy of base colour is irrelevant if you’re weathering, it’ll look great.

[robemcdonald]

Thanks for the advice. I’ll try and lessen the effect with thinned layers as you suggest.
I think I worry too much about losing the pre-shading effect, so it looks a bit heavy handed.

[dr_gn]

Best way is to towards the end, after every thinned coat, dry it with a hairdryer - the effect is different wet/dry. When you think it could do with maybe one last coat...leave it.

[dr_gn]

Just noticed you’ve pre-shaded the primer. My method (which doesn’t seem very common) is to paint a base coat of top colour first- that way you’re pretty much guaranteed to get no patches that are too pale, and no areas where you accidentally cover the shading up by trying to cover the primer. It’s particulatly good where there’s a high contrast between primer an top colour. Your undersides won’t have been an issue because the primer and blue aren’t high contrast.

So, preshade the first top coat, then overspray with thinned top colour again.

[robemcdonald]

So when I come to the green. I paint the whole thing a solid colour, then add the panel lines and finally spray over with a thinned down top coat?

[dr_gn]

robemcdonald said:

So when I come to the green. I paint the whole thing a solid colour, then add the panel lines and finally spray over with a thinned down top coat?

Yes, thats what I do, and it works for me, others do what you did and apply preshade to primer. Slightly more work using my method in terms of changing paints, but there you go.

[robemcdonald]

My attempt to make it more subtle. I think it works....
Before

After


Now I just need to work out what green to use. I don’t want to go too dark.

[dr_gn]

Spot on. A dark wash and a few oil streaks and it will finish it.

I know Vallejo Model Colour “Brown Violet” sounds totally wrong for the green topsides, but trust me it’s fine.

[robemcdonald]

Trouble is I am very inpatient. There is nowhere local to me that stocks Vallejo (since Hannants in Hendon seem to have a pathological hatred of it) so I am going to try and knock something up. I was looking on cyber modeler and this is what they say.

I think they are suggesting XF-5 which I don’t actually have, but can get easily enough.

[robemcdonald]

I found the page for my chosen scheme. Looks like it’s nato green

[dr_gn]

robemcdonald said:

I found the page for my chosen scheme. Looks like it’s nato green

Hang on for 10 mins. I'll do a quick back-to-back test for you.

[dr_gn]

Yeah, NATO Green will look OK:



Not even sure where I got the Brown Violet reference from - I probably just thought it looked about right knowing me.

ETA interseting there's such a range of 7% fade options from different manufactureres. I think Brown Violet would be very close to one of those after all. Go with NATO Green, it'll be right with preshading - after all it's not like anyone can definitively say what shade your aircraft was at all points during its life.

Edited by dr_gn on Saturday 5th May 22:01

[robemcdonald]

dr_gn said:

Yeah, NATO Green will look OK:



Not even sure where I got the Brown Violet reference from - I probably just thought it looked about right knowing me.

ETA interseting there's such a range of 7% fade options from different manufactureres. I think Brown Violet would be very close to one of those after all. Go with NATO Green, it'll be right with preshading - after all it's not like anyone can definitively say what shade your aircraft was at all points during its life.

Edited by dr_gn on Saturday 5th May 22:01

Thanks for the comparison Doc. I’ll give it a go. I appreciate your help.