012: FALKE COLOUR SCHEME

FALKE’S COLOUR SCHEME

Picture this – In the dark evening sky, sometimes one can see a flying silhouette amongst the treetops. This silent beast’s body was as dark as the night while its belly was as light as the morning sky. In the… oh, heck. Anyway, in my original plan, I wanted to give the Falke a dark grey top with a sky blue bottom. But without the AWACS dish, this colour scheme becomes boring and meaningless. Looking back at the colour reference card from the kit and also from the Internet, I have more or less settled down on a scheme which loosely combined both the card’s and Ilmari Juutilainen’s B-239 Brewster Buffalo.

The Falke will have a yellow band at the twin booms plus its stabilisers, RLM76 Light Blue at the bottom and progressive green on the top.

Usually I would bath the model in water and detergent to remove all the oils and my fingerprints after working on the model. But after putting electronics inside it, the model needed another round of cleaning. I had to use the local methanol since I do not have IPA here. After that, it was time to mask the hatch’s windows, the rear engine, the Third-Eye and not forgetting, the scratchable aluminum cage.

Using Mr. Surfacer 1000, I sprayed it at low pressure to get that rough look. This was helped with the wrong thinner mix ratio by accident.

After 12 hours of drying, I did some pre-shading with Mr. Color #137 Tire Black. I am so tempted to stop at this stage and give it various light coats of dark greys which was my original paint scheme because I am a boring person.

A few hours later, I coated the Falke with Mr. Color #117 RLM76 Light Blue. It’s very hard to see from this picture but the new coat has a very light blue tint and it’s much more noticeable on the underside. You can see the difference when I placed the front caps the twin booms which only has been coated with the primer.

Here is another shot of the RLM76 in daylight. So far so good.

FALKE’S TOP COLOUR SCHEME

For the upper part of the body, I sprayed a thin mixture of Mr. Colour #121 RLM81 Brown Violet from almost half a feet away. This gives me a very light and dispersed green finish.

The idea is to layer the green progressively from the edges inwards until to the middle of the panels and reaching the top where it is the most concentrated.

This was achieved with the airbrush sprayed at about one feet away.

Then I mixed the green (Mr. Colour #121 RLM81 Brown Violet) with a few drops of Mr. Color #137 Tire Black to darken it.

I did not realize that while I have been spraying, my eyes had already adjusted itself to the bright lights. And so, I kept adding Mr. Color #137 Tire Black to the mix, thinking it’s still too light.

By the time I took a break and came back, I realized my mistake and it was too late. So, I made some random circles to the body. Because I am using lacquer paints, this mistake cannot be recovered unless I strip all the paint off. That risk might compromise the electronics inside the model too.

There is nothing much I can do at this stage except to finish both stabilisers.

Yeah, the green is too dark now. While I was spraying the model, my one source of lighting was just inches above the model. I use this method to see where the spray were aimed at since the green were almost the same. I was literally staring in the light and also absorbing the reflected light. I was so absorbed with this that I did not realised my eyes have adapted to the brightness to the point where the green has gone too dark but my eyes still see them as still being ‘too light’.

So, there and then, I knew I made a huge mistake and had to stop there. With the remaining paint, I created circles and also, weird patterns and called it a day. Seriously, I slept like a log that night despite the stress of this mistake.

FALKE’S BOTTOM COLOUR SCHEME

Earlier on, the bottom of the Falke was sprayed with Mr. Color #117 RLM76 Light Blue which had a nice bluish tint. This is also the time where I started to experiment with oil paints, namely the Abteilung 502 Series. I was informed that the advantages of these oils were its fine pigments and long drying times which allows for mixing/blending of various shades. Unfortunately, I am still approaching them as individual colours and I like mine to dry fast!

The drying times helped when I used their ABT113 Fast Dry Thinner and also, by trial and error, much faster with the Zippo Lighter Fluid, which is more towards my current style.

LEFT
This is the rear of the Falke where the engine is located. I have masked off the horizontal ridges using Mr. Sol R. I sprayed Mr. Color #137 Tire Black to the front most edge of the ridge to show that it caught a lot of dust during flight. Note that this area is quite barren as I have decided not to put any detailed parts above it since they can be broken or compromised every time the USB connector is plugged in or removed.

RIGHT
As finishing touch, I used Tamiya Panel Line Black to highlight the edges of these lines. I also used the Panel Line on the rest of the model. Because of the Light Blue’s matte surface, the Panel Line distributed beautifully. The ridges will be weathered later on.

LEFT
The middle of the round ‘fan’ was filled with Tamiya Panel Line Black while its outer fan blades was Panel Line Dark Brown. I usually use Dark Brown since Black makes it look model-like. The rusts were dry-brushed with Abteilung 502 ABT060 Light Rust and ABT070 Dark Rust. I mixed the oils with Zippo, dipped the brush in it and used tissue paper to soak off the excess lighter fluid. So, this is my ‘dry-brushing’ method for the oils.

RIGHT
For the details nearer to the engine, I used Abteilung 502’s ABT060 Light Rust and ABT070 Dark Rust along with Tamiya Panel Line Black and Dark Brown. This is just a preliminary weathering as there will be more work done on this area very much later.

LEFT
For the anti-gravity Domes, I stippled or dry-brushed the Abteilung 502 ABT165 Faded White followed by ABT060 Light Rust to show they have been scraping the floor with rusts coming out, etc. The ABT005 Smoke was used to show how the domes were affected by the exhausts emitted from the front booms.

RIGHT
I wet the brush with Zippo lighter fluid and began to wash the ABT165 smoke, sweeping from the front to the sides.

All in all, I quite enjoyed these experiments with the Abteilung Oils and with time, I’ll learn how to use them ‘properly’. Right now, these are just basic weathering for the underside and at a later stage, it will get weathered even more. For my style at the moment, the Zippo Lighter Fluid is my go to thinner but the oil paint needs to be refreshed quite often compared to the ABT113 Fast Dry Thinner which also does the same job but does not evaporate that fast. And I always forget to use that when my hand instinctively reaches out for the Zippo…

LEFT
Using Abteilung 502 ABT005 Smoke, I lined them at the panel edges nearest to the engine. I then wet the brushed with Zippo lighter fluid and dragged them to the rear for the streaking effect. I did the same with random spots to show some kind of oil streaks leaking from the battered airframe and panels.

RIGHT
The result is subtle streaks and slightly worn aircraft.

011
Pkf.85 Falke
013
PISCEAN WORKS