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I started this kit a few years ago as part of a Group Build on LSP, but quickly stalled out. It made a couple of returns to the bench, before I finally committed to getting it finished earlier this year. Initially it was meant to be a quick build, so I elected not to rescribe it, or fix the inaccurate main wheel bays, but with a bunch of legacy aftermarket in the box, it quickly evolved into something more complicated. The main aftermarket sets were a Grand Phoenix resin cockpit, resin main wheels (True Details I think), Moskit exhausts, and a Squadron vac canopy (of which I only used the sliding section). The tail antenna and the windscreen rear view mirror were taken from the Tamiya kit. The main relevance for SMPM, however, is that the nose chequers, spinner, fuselage codes and serial numbers were all masked and painted using custom masks I cut on the Silhouette Portrait. I also tried to do the national markings, but wasn't happy with how they turned out, so I resorted to decals for those, along with the aircraft name and a handful of stencils. Thanks for looking! Kev

Thanks, Mike. My stash is full of these old kits, so there'll be plenty more to come! Kev

Checks can be a fiddly to get right, but it's very rewarding when you do. If you're interested, I did a detailed WIP: they're not perfect, but good enough imo. They do indeed. Nice Pony Kev, just shows that these old kits can scrub up very well.

It was a bit fiddly I have to confess, and they didn't turn out perfectly, but then the real things were probably a little agricultural too. I think they look OK. I painted them first and then masked them off for the main camo colours, which I thought would be easier than doing it the other way around. Kev

that looks great Kev the nose turned out exceptionally well, how did you find doing the checker pattern?

Well that is a very cool build!

Yeah i can imagine it was difficult to line things up just so with all the visual lines Well done!

Funnily enough I haven't built that many WW2 RAF fighters in standard camouflage, and those few I have "free-handed" with the airbrush. But with the sublime Tamiya Spitfire kit I decided to explore making camouflage masks. I scanned the colour A3 sheet provided with the kit then imported the image onto the Silhouette screen, starting with the wings: I measured the distance from leading to trailing edge on the kit where the wing walk stripe goes, then scaled the image onscreen to match that distance (just draw a straight line the measured distance, rotate and move it over the wing image and drag that out to match the line size). Once that was established it was very easy selecting the line "figure of eight" draw tool to (manually) trace the outline of the camouflage lines: I had already put down a base coat of Ocean Grey so the masks for those areas were pulled off and carefully laid in place on the wings. It took no time at all to spray the Dark Green resulting in crisp lines when the masks were removed: That was the easy bit done, then "3D fuselage would be a different matter. But first I decided to finish the upper and lower wings. Slight problem, unaccountable problem, with one roundel on which the blue lifted when the mask was removed, no idea why: but the other was fine: There was a potential problem with the under wings; the centre of the roundel coincides with a large fairing....."lump" to me, that no mask or decal for that matter is going to willingly conform to. I sliced around it carefully once the roundel mask was in place then used masking fluid to fill the gaps. Worked well enough: Adventures with the fuselage: I wasn't sure of the best way to go about these masks - separate port and starboard ones or a one piece "wrap-over" one. Well after a few experiments the latter wasn't that practical. So I used the same technique as the wings - scanning, importing (and flipping one image), scaling, tracing: which ended up something like: (but this has now been revised and uploaded to this site.) Screenshots showing mask positions: and after applying to the model, spraying and removing: Drawing the fuselage masks involved a certain amount of trial and error, and there is still a little touch up to do but generally speaking it's been a successful exercise. Please feel free to download the masks but please read the caveat with the masks. When I do the fuselage and tail markings I'll add them to this thread. Max

Final stages, whole roundels put back in place then red centre removed, replaced and blue outer done: The transfer piece here is sold for Cricut machines - low tack, completely clear (which is a distinct advantage) and with the grid on it which helps: and before very long at all: