Painting crew-figures and cockpit-completion

Hello again in my blog. Today I want to show you the painted crew-figures and the painting and completion of the cockpit.

The change of the poses of the figures I already described in a former post. For the accentuation of the wrinkles in the clothing of figures I have quite a simple solution.

I have 3 fluids which can be ordered from MAKO-Modellbau in Germany which make the job quite easy:

Here are 2 pictures of the painting in Progress. For the painting I use enamels and acrylics:

When the painting process is finished the figures are brushed with Future Floor Polish in order to achieve a highly gloss finish. This is absolutely necessary in preparation to applying the MAKO-solvents. There are 3 Types of this solvent: soft for pale surfaces, medium for darker surfaces and dark for dark surfaces. They have to be applied with a bigger but soft brush.

When applying, the solvent runs into the wrinkles and gives them a beautiful deep appearance:

After 1 day of drying you simply have to airbrush the figures with flat varnish and then its finished:

The pilot had to be fixed in his seat and his harness was attached. The shoulder-harness was a bit tricky but it looks ok for me:

I then painted and weathered the rest of the cockpit. For this reason the parts were all airbrushed with future and weathered with different shades of black and umbra oil-colors.

The desk of the navigator and wireless was made of wood painted with interior green. Since this was the working place of them I used a hard brush and oil-colors to simulate the wood shining through the paint. I also applied and weathered the seat-harness from the EDUARD-Set.

Here are some pics of the completed and assembled parts:

For the navigator I added a map with the Möhne- and Sorpe-Rservoirs and a pen:

For the wireless operator I got an operating book for him from my friend and master-modeller Sven Müller. Sven and myself are doing a group-build of 2 Dambuster-Lancasters and support each other. The book added gives a nice touch to the wireless-workplace:

The fuselage-sides were also painted and weathered:

Here are some pics of the cockpit test-fitted into the left forward fuselage:

This was all for today. Next time I will show you the painting and detailing of the crew-room behind the main spar to the aft fuselage.

Thanks for sharing and see you soon !