anderson modelling

After four months on the bench, we've finally reached the finish line for the GWCC competition. It’s been an incredible journey taking this 1/32 Corsair from a raw kit to a heavily weathered Pacific veteran. Included here is my final image submission along with the detailed category shots to officially wrap up my entry. I want to give a massive thanks to everyone in the community who followed the weekly updates, traded bench tips, and kept the motivation high through all the messy stages. Best of luck to all the other amazing creators, it’s been an absolute honor building alongside you.

I have never built a base for one of my airplanes builds before, but I thought on this occasion I would give it a go. I started off with an insulation block and covered the sides with balsa wood. I used Evergreen strips on the top to simulate the deck of an aircraft carrier. I airbrushed Tamiya Buff and then using an AK Quick Marker, I tried to simulate wood grain. I sealed all that in and then gave it a layer of hairspray for some deck worn chipping. I covered that with a dark grey and some carrier lane markings and went ahead and started chipping away to get that beaten and heavily used wartime carrier deck feel. I had originally planned on staining the balsa wood or painting it black, but I had some second thoughts on how that might turn out. So instead, I thought I would play it safe and just went with a graphic wrap around which I designed up and just printed out at home on my printer.

I thought to finish the build off it would be cool to have a pilot’s parachute and flight cap laying on the wing. To do this though would mean scratch building it. I used the pilot figure that came with the kit as a starting point. First off l cut the back off the figure which give me a good base. Then using some Tamiya Epoxy Puddy l sculpted out the actual parachute and added some thin lead wire and spare PE to finish it off. I also used 1mm Tamiya tape for the harness with a little help off some spare Eduard straps and buckles l had laying around. Then it was just a matter of painting to bring it altogether. Finally, was tackling the pilots flying cap. Again, l went to the kits figure and with a rotary tool and fine bit drilled out the face and head just leaving the cap. To get it to look like it was laying flat l took a hair dryer and heated it until it was pliable enough to bend it into shape. All in all there was a lot more work in this than l thought, which was about a three day process.

The kit supplies decals for the "surgical tape" used to seal Corsair fuel tank seams, but they lacked real fabric texture and depth. To get a more authentic field-applied look, I ditched the decals and laid down thin strips of Tamiya masking tape along the panel joints ahead of the windscreen, burnishing them tightly to the surface before hitting them with grimy washes to mimic fuel-soaked, Pacific-worn adhesive tape.

Looks like I lost a number of posts due to the hack, so I will try and catch up over the next couple of days. So here is another technique builders might find of interest, something I call varnish chipping. As well as normal chipping, we are all familiar with another technique: varnish chipping. The difference with this is that no paint is used; instead, I CAREFULLY scrape into the varnish just enough to chip the varnish but not the paint underneath. The benefit of the technique is that it creates a surface scratch resulting in no paint loss but scratches all the same like you see in real life. These varnish scratches also don't show up unless the light hits it at certain angles..this again gives it a unique appearance. To best achieve this result, it works best to do it after the pinwash, then seal it with an acrylic varnish (VMS Extra Matt, I have found, works best) and start chipping within the first 24 hrs before it sets. It’s a high-risk technique that can't be undone, so best to practice on a test mule.

Starting on the upper weathering. When weathering, I basically stick to enamels and oils. I begin with the light tones and work towards the darker ones. I like to put them down fairly wet, let them evaporate off as you see in the above image set, then start to blend them with odorless thinners.

l always start my weathering on the underneath side first. This helps me to start getting a feel for it. After the wash of a very light blue l started in with some AK Starship Grime enamel( dont tell the sci-fi dudes). Then with Abteilung oils, smoke,dark brown and burnt umber. finishing off with some speckling with a very diluted starship grime.

Prop weathering. For some reason l really don't like weathering props. Anyway...my process is to spray the yellow tips first and mask them. Then spray the black and then remove the masks. Give it a gloss clear coat and let it gas off for about 12 hrs.Apply the decals (note: these are the only decals I've used on the entire build). then apply another gloss coat...let dry...again. Finally, ready for a custom light oil wash using a light grey oil paint heavily diluted with odourless thinners.Also a slight light brown enamel pin wash around the spinner. Seal everything again..ugh...with a flat coat. Final stage, using a very fine brush ,start chipping away using a dull aluminum acrylic with a retarder in it just to slow down the tip dry. Place prop on plane ...spinning and engine sound effects is optional.

Finally moving onto the first steps of the weathering process. First off, a lacquer gloss clear coat. After letting it gas off for about 24 hours, I then move onto a pinwash. The pinwash was made using a light blue oil paint heavily diluted with odourless thinners. I chose a light blue colour to simulate that Pacific salt fading. Finally, to seal it, I sprayed on an acrylic flat clear.

Really love this authenticity of airbrushed markings. Particularly happy with the smaller fuselage markings. Using my Gaahleri 0.3 Mobius to lay these down.