1/32 Kotare Spitfire "Brian Lane" 85 year anniversary tribute vignette

PeteF · Saturday at 04:05 PM

This became a labor of love. I knew immediately when I bought the kit that I wanted to do a vignette loosely based on the famous Brian Lane photo and the photo of QV-K. I immensely enjoyed the Kōtare model. I lost one part and damaged another and Kōtare kindly shipped me replacements. I tried some aftermarket parts but, honestly, I didn't get much value out of some of them (and in some cases didn't use them) because the Kōtare kit was superior. Parts I used:

- Eduard PE cockpit parts (mostly not used, I used a couple of small bits but the model would have been little different if I hadn't used any of them)

- HGW seatbelts (immense frustration and difficulty but did use them. They get an F- for instructions)

- Kit Masks painting masks for everything except the stencils - excellent

- Matters of Scale Early RAF Accumulator Cart (excellent)

- Barracuda 3D printed control stick (not really a value add to the kit other than the being cranked to the left so I could deflect the ailerons)

- Brengun models RAF chocks and ladder (used the chocks with modification) – I cut the tip of my finger off trying to scratch build these originally.

- Art Scale Kits canopy masks - they worked great.

I "primed" the model with Tamiya silver laquer and painted everything with (mostly Vallejo) acrylics. Brian was painted entirely with acrylics.I had never really painted a figure seriously before (in my youth I'd done some 1/12 Tamiya pit crew figures but they weren't very good).

I bought a base off the internet and got a static grass applicator and made the terrain out of model grass and dirt. That was a first time for me. Brian and the accumulator cart have small brass rods (through Brian's feet and through the accumulator's wheels) so I can remove them. The cable from the accumulator trolly is just inserted into the connector (which is glued to the plane) so I can remove the plane from the base.

The famous Brian Lane photo was taken in September 1940. I'm a bit late finishing but spiritually it was done 85 years later. I did plenty of research and came to some of my own conclusions to lead to some of my choices:

1. Yellow spinner – Yes, on balance of all the evidence I believe it was yellow

2. No doped fabric over the guns on this aircraft (see photo at end)

3. The upper cowling was off a different plane and had the "B" camo pattern

4. Black aluminum seat and black seat-back armor plate.

5. No mid wing to root black walk lines