Going down

It’s been a while since my last blog so here we go! I have been building a bit more the last week but before that it has been pretty meager.

The Zero

I put primer on most of the final parts of the zero.. unfortunately I found out later I forgot about two small panels that are part of the wheel covering. I’m not going to make a mess of my airbrush just to put primer on two parts that I can put on my fingertip so I will either have to wait for more parts before I get the stuff out again, or I might just see what the result is when I get around to finishing this model.

There is some decision to make about the color of the wheel bays. Some internet sources show the A6M5 with either brown or light blue wheel bays. Then again, there are different tints of green, and things like the propeller cap are either white or green as well.

I will have to see if I can find more sources on the specific plane I want to make. Since the original decals are eaten away I purchased some after market ones.

Workplace

The last couple of months I found that one thing that kept me from doing some work is having to go upstairs. I do spend quite some time in ‘my room’ but right now it is mostly to do virtual flying in IL-2 Battle of Stalingrad.

So I am now slowly moving my stuff to our house extension. It’s a bit colder there, so I have some small isolation work to do, but there is nothing wrong with that. Besides the summer will be here before we know it.

I-16

Another thing that has probably stopped me from doing work sometime is a promise I made to myself.. to not have a ‘stack of doom’. To me that meant not starting work on a new kit before the old one was finished. In fact I actually broke that promise pretty early on when I start working on the Cargolux B747-8F, a kit which is still standing half finished in my room upstairs.. recently I also started work on the ICM I-16. Since I feel more like working on the I-16 right now I decided to stop making life difficult for myself and just go for it!

I already started work on the wing a while back, so the next step was now to apply a layer of gray in the wheel bay area..
..and the first cockpit parts.

I am not sure if I am too happy about this so far though.. The instructions says the chair needs to be all black. I am using a different source though, which is the cockpit view in IL-2 Battle of Stalingrad. Which shows that the chair itself is a dark green (like the outside of the plane) and so I brush painted the chair and the rests.

But looking at the end result, I think I will tear the chair off again, clean it completely and just spray the green on and I will just hand brush the headrest. For the color of the rests I used anthracite which made more sense to me.

IPMS

I did some thinking and I decided that I am not going to renew my IPMS membership right now..

When I became a member I had just spent a couple of hundred euros on modeling stuff, and the 10% discount for stuff alone felt like a good reason for a membership. But the spending spree has stopped so that’s not a good reason any more. I don’t particularly enjoy their magazine, and I don’t have time or energy to spend time on visiting events or meetings.

The money I saved with not paying for another year of membership will go nicely towards buying my next airbrush!

Next blog I will show the end result on the cockpit for the I-16.

PS: my dad’s P-51 is coming along nicely! That Revell kit looks so great and my dad is doing an awesome job. Really curious to see how it looks when the paint is on!