Starting out, I had had more time and thought I'd put together a little walk through on my Desert Duel entry. Unfortunately, I was very pressed for time at the end, so it isn't quite finished - But I thought I'd at least post what I had.
Since the Ares mini wasn't quite a Martlet, I started out by removing some bits and adding some others. I also tried to fix some joins with green stuff. The prop and canopy was removed to facilitate painting.
There were some problems with the engine cowling, which was crookedly attached and had to be removed and corrected - I was never quite able to fix the resulting seam to my satisfaction.
The MG's were made from (very) short lengths of copper (stripped electrical) wire. I made tiny slots in the wing for these to go in - both for the look and for a stronger join.
Next came the base coat, by airbrush. Any minor flaws show up horribly in the pics - Most of the them do however look ok in real life.
I then added some low-lights to the bottom half, with very diluted paint in a slightly darker and slightly bluer hue. Later (not visible in any pic) I added some high-lights, in a slightly lighter hue than the base gray.
I airbrushed the top colour freehand.
The darker camo was also applied by freehand airbrushing. This was a very nervous job: A very slight mistake might mean that I'd have to start all aver again - Especially near the bored between yellow and grey, since I probably wouldn't be able to correct the with a paintbrush and make it look like the airbrushed parts.
I painted the wings first and masked them off before working on the fuselage.
Some areas where I missed a bit (tiny dark spots where they shouldn't be and bits not adequately covered) could however be fixed by hand - Using highly diluted paint applied in several layers.
This is as far as I got in documenting my progress, but the rest was fairly simple:
Add some low-lights to the top, paint in some more detailing and attach canopy and prop.
National marking decals are Shed-decals, the rest I made.
Lastly I applied some weathering.
Original plan was to attach I wire, but I decided against it in the end.
I was very pleased with how this one turned out. Even so, winning was a bit of a surprise, seeing it was my first finished 1/200 model to date.
Thank's everyone for voting on my little plane - It's a real honor!
/Niclas
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