Will This Post Shading Work?

Transcript*

Skit

Hello all. This is David from Loisirs vers le soleil and wouldn’t you believe it, I have lost yet another important part for this kit. Can’t move on without it. So, I guess it’s time to just give up on the whole build and move on. Oh, there it is.

Recap

Welcome to part five of this main 1/32nd scale Fokker DR1 build where I will prime the entire air frame as well as show you some post shading techniques. So, let’s do a brief recap of what I’ve done so far. Uh the main air frame is pretty much all built up. All that remains to go on top are the top and bottom wings, the landing gear, the engine cowling, and the rudder.

David’s Wing Tip

Now, as I mentioned in the previous part of this build with World War I era biplanes and triplanes, I prefer to paint the wings separately first before attaching them all together. as um well, for instance, if you had these wings here, it would be a little trickier to reach the bottom halves of the wings when they’re covered up like this. So, just for ease of access, I preferred to do it this way. Uh we we had built and painted the propeller, the rotary engine as well as the guns. So all the extremities that will have to be attached post painting.

So uh now that that’s out of the way, we’ll get started priming this. I’ll be using Alclad’s grey primer and filler this time. So, instead of my usual pre-shading techniques, which I use with maybe 90% of the aircraft I build, I’ll be doing a post shading technique this time. I will show you that later. So, I’m just going to transfer all these to the spray booth and we will get spraying. One last thing to mention before I start priming.

Priming Prep

Uh because this is a World War I aircraft, you don’t have the luxury of painting over an enclosed canopy, which means that you have to somehow find a way to fill in all the open space so it doesn’t get painted. In this case, I use some Tamiya masking tape. I put it all around the rim of the cockpit. And to fill in that last remaining gap, I’m going to take uh a cheap sponge and gently place it in there.

Sponges are good for this because uh they’re soft and spongy and they can conform. I just want to be careful because I don’t want to break the control yolk that’s in there. So now everything is covered up that I don’t want painted and we can start priming.

Airbrushing Primer

Boy does it suck priming in grey. Considering that 99% of plastic scale models are molded in grey, it can be quite challenging to see what exactly you’re painting. But nonetheless, we got through it. Everything has a light gray primer coat to it.

Post Shadowing

So now the next step is for post shading. Well, sort of post shading. Most World War I aircraft were uh wood structures with fabric doped over them. Now, in the early years of the war, many manufacturers didn’t bother to paint their aircraft. So, as a result, you would get uh this sort of see-through effect. So, if you were painting uh an Airco DH2 or an RAF BE2, how you would do this is you would paint the ribs of the wing, and that’ll help give it the illusion of being see-through. But because this was a painted aircraft, we’re going to be doing the opposite.

So, instead of painting these ribs here, we’re going to be painting the area right next to it. And we’re going to want to give it a feathered out look. So, to do this, you could cut strips of masking tape and put them on every single rib, but I just I just can’t. Not today. So, another way you could do it is you can take one of the hundreds of thank you cards we’ve probably given you over the years and place it right over the rib. And because it’s wobbly and flexible, you can conform it to the curved surface of the wing. And then just very gently airbrush. And you’ll see later on as I demonstrate it how it’ll look. So for that I’m going to be using Ammo’s Atom Paint RLM66.

I do not recommend using a pure black for this, especially if red is going on top of it because if you try to put red over black, you literally can’t see it. All you’re getting is a very, very, very dark brown. So, we’re going to use gray instead. Heavily thinned with Ammo’s Atom thinner and cleaner. So, we’re going to move once again to the spray booth and we will begin this very tedious process.

Rib Painting

I’m just going to do maybe one or two ribs here as an example and uh I’ll do the rest off camera. Hopefully, you’ll get the idea. So, I’ve mixed my RLM 66 paint together. It’s all thinned out at a 50/50 ratio. I’ll be using the top wing as an example. So, you’re going to grab your Thank you card. I’ve got I’ve got the PSI on my compressor at about 5%. And now I’m going to hold it right over the rib. So, I’ve got my thumb covering the whole thing now. And carefully we’re going to, as you can see, that has created a shadow effect. So now I’m going to do the same thing on the other end. So, that is one down and I’ve got about uh 100 left to go. So, I’ll take care of all that and I’ll check back in with you in a moment.

David’s Conclusion

This concludes part five of my main Fokker DR1 build. We had started post shading but as you can see I did not finish it. But unfortunately I am out of time for today and in need of aspirin. So join us here for part six where I will finish the post shading. I promise.

And then we will finally give this model its legendary coat of red paint. So, thank you very much for watching this video. Remember to like, comment, subscribe, follow us on our socials, and until the next one, adios.

About the Author:

David Peckam has built scale models since he was 12, specializing largely on military aircraft. He is a makeup artist and background actor for films and TV. He enjoys watching hockey and of course, movies. He has an excellent knowledge of hobby products and if you have questions concerning scale model airplanes.

*Video by David Peckham
Video Edited by Daniela Castellano
Transcript generated by youtube
Edited by Angelo Castellano