Painting a Skytrex Nieuport 11

This build might be more appropriately titled "Painting a Skytrex Nieuport 11", since I have practically no pics of the kit under construction. The reason for this is that this kit is one of the very first I started to work on, possibly even the very first (off the top of my head I don't recall if this, or the Brisfit, was first), so I wasn't thinking of writing a "how-to" on it. In fact, I was worried that I'd be able to do this at all.

Either way, I suppose I got lucky. This kit was a gem for a rookie. There was little to no flash on any of the parts. The holes for the struts were free of obstructions. And there are very few parts. I didn't take a picture of the parts laid out, but you can see from the following that it consisted of a fuselage with an attached lower wing, the upper wing, left and right wing struts, four cabane struts, left and right landing gear struts, an axle with attached wheels, and prop. That was it.

The trickiest parts of this kit? None, really. I suppose if I had to pick two, I'd have to say bending the lower wings to get a nice dihedral angle and attaching the cabane struts. Everything else went off without a hitch. Finally, the fact that the wheels and axle come as one part makes this kit a no-brainer.

Here it is laid out waiting for more parts.




Now it is primed and ready to go.




And then I hit my stumbling point. I saw this photo.




I wanted to make Vampire, but I had little experience making my own decals, certainly none making decals this small. And I hadn't painted camo on a plane in decades. So I spent the last bunch of months practicing, until I thought I'd be able to get it right.

Here she is getting her first coat of paint. I went with Vallejo Saddle Brown as the base color.




I really like the look of the Belgian colors. Note to self, I should do more Belgian planes.




Then came the day when I finally mustered up the courage to try the decals. I printed out four, nailed the first, botched the second, and had to use the third. The white decal paper is tricky. It is thicker than the clear, and on these teeny decals the printed edges tend to chip.




Once they had dried, I gave the model a blast of Testor's dull, then went to work with my smallest brushes.

The finished kit...