Tamiya Spitfire LF IX

[Mozart]

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 26, 2021 by Mozart

[mark13]

Nice work you have done

 

Mark

[Mozart]

Thank you Mark, I'm happy that it's coming along quite well. 😁

 

I've started on the fuselage roundels: firstly the "empty" mask was put in place:

 

 

and the white base collar sprayed:

 

 

This was quickly followed by the yellow outer area:

 

 

Tomorrow I'll put the whole roundel back in place then firstly "weed out" the red inner circle, leaving everything else as is.  When that's dry, the red centre mask goes back in (easy to get this correctly centred) and the blue outer weeded out and the area sprayed.  When all the masks are removed......Hey presto....with luck.....simple perfect roundels! 

 

[Mozart]

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:

 

 

[Steve Evans]

Nice work and a good step-by-step explanation of the process. Cheers Mozart!

[GeneK]

Max,

 

Great job, as always.

 

I'm slowly going through all your posts (as I have the time), and thank you for all the lessons! You do an outstanding "job" photographing and explaining.

 

Gene K

Edited January 17, 2023 by GeneK

[Mozart]

Thank you Gene, that’s very good of you and much appreciated I can assure you. 

[Mdriesenga]

I've just joined and this post does a great job explaining the process.  Thank you.

[Mozart]

11 hours ago, Mdriesenga said:

I've just joined and this post does a great job explaining the process.  Thank you.

Thank you! I hope you enjoy your time here and continue to find it useful. 

[Sheriff]

Nice work! 

I don't have a cutter, or work in 1/32, but I did take those masks rescale them into 1/48 and 1/72, and turn them into PDFs for manual tracing. I'm not sure about the copyright arrangements here, though. 

[Mozart]

Use as you wish, that’s fine.

Max