Wingnut Wings 1:32 Roland C.IIa (Early) Feldflieger-Abteilung (A)292b

[FarEast]

Well after consulting again with the fantastic guys over at Wingnut Wings I decided to add another layer of detail.

This time it is a clear dope linen layer as this was how they were finished after the two halves were joined. The reason for this is that it will also play a huge effect on the shading and colouring of the 'Light Blue' rag rolled finished.

So again it was time to preshade the fuselage and apply several coats of thin coats of Tamiya 'Deck Tan'







Now my hope is that the dark blue pre-shading and top coats, followed by the CDL pre-shading and top coats blends perfectly along the seam lines and other detailing on the fuselage.

So time to start carefully peeling off the masks to see what we have!







Overall I'm really pleased with the finish, I feel the pre-shading blends perfectly between the two colours and that the method used has been effect for what I wanted to create. Now I need to look at how to achieve the effects of rag rolling over the top of these with the 'light blue' found on the Roland C.II aircraft.  


 

[guitarlute101]

Awesome work James! Top notch!

 

Mark

[FarEast]

So that's done - This is how she's looking with several very thin coats of the 'light blue', this was done unevenly as I want to start breaking up the uniformed look - I'm trying to replicate a hand painted effect after all. This was then followed up with a few layers of clear coat.

We have a national holiday on Tuesday so I will leave it till then and then give the oils a spin! Now its just a case of colour matching, I found several 'blues' but nothing that was a perfect match so I will have to experiment.

[JeroenPeters]

Just amazing mask-manship!

Beautiful.

[FarEast]

Well after watching my son's football (Soccer) Team slam the opposition 5-0 on Saturday morning with one killer goal by my son I was able to dedicate some of the afternoon and then all day Sunday to the Roland.

The first job was to build the horizontal tailplane I added the 5mm wire so to give a better attachment and I've learned my lesson and did this small modification before even applying the primer!



After this a base coat of flat white was applied and then masked ready for preshading, a walk in the park in comparison to the fish scales.



The same was done to the lower wings and then several coats of clear varnish. The tops I will use oils and for the bottoms Aviattics bleached Linen 'light.



While I was waiting for the fuselage to cure, I also painted up the rudder.



All this then goes in to my drying box, put on a shelf and left to do its thing.

[mywifehatesmodels]

I don't know what to say, that hasn't already been said, about the masking. Wow!

 

The one thing that stuck out to me, was the appearance of the blue color, before the scale masks were removed. Once the lighter color was applied and the masks removed, it changed the overall appearance, entirely (and for the better)! Funny how one color can look so different by itself, from how it looks once another is applied to give some contrast. This must have been one of those "go with your gut" moments?

 

Again, fine job and such a lively subject.

 

John

[FarEast]

Just a small update today, yesterday was a national holiday and the idea was to start the oils on the surfaces. However we got a call on Monday night from the soccer team that my son left recently to join a Japan U12 League Team - the old team he joined when he was 3 years old and many of the boys on the squad went to the same kindergarten as him whom also moved on to other teams so we all felt it would be a good send off for him and the others if they attended the tournement.

They didn't lose a game and were crowned champions on top of that he was awarded 'man of the match', we couldn't ask for a better send off!





Sorry about that..... I'm just a very proud dad! Anyway back to what you came for!

 

Also I apologise for the low quality of photos - they were taken with my phone.

Angel wings



Surfaces finished and ready for Aviattic linen decals and oil paints.





Naked shot, just so you can see it's not photoshopped




 

[FarEast]

I don't know what to say, that hasn't already been said, about the masking. Wow!

 

The one thing that stuck out to me, was the appearance of the blue color, before the scale masks were removed. Once the lighter color was applied and the masks removed, it changed the overall appearance, entirely (and for the better)! Funny how one color can look so different by itself, from how it looks once another is applied to give some contrast. This must have been one of those "go with your gut" moments?

 

Again, fine job and such a lively subject.

 

John

Hi John,

 

Actually I had tested the effect on a spare piece from the kit so I knew what would happen once I gave it an over spray of the light blue. One thing that the photos don't change is the optical illusion of the paint scheme being lighter at one end then darker at the other, and when you turn the model the effect shifts. This is due to the first coat of dark blue with the preshading before the CDL and its preshades.

 

The whole process really has been a 'go with the gut' affair though and I still have no idea how the oil painting will effect the overall appearance. 

[rick geisler]

James,

As I have said elsewhere, this is an outstanding Model! Your masking, shading, and overall detail are Brilliant!

RAGIII

[FarEast]

Thank you all for taking the time to not only follow the build but also to leave comments - it really does keep the mojo flowing!

[JeroenPeters]

Beautiful progress on the Roland and congrats on your son(s team) success!

[Fran]

Great result for your son`s team!! You have all the reasons to be a proud dad!! Congrats!!!!

 

The Roland... just wow!!! Cant wait to see you do the magic with Aviattic decals...

[FarEast]

Well I managed to get a little time at the bench this weekend between teacher training courses and my sons football (soccer) matches.

So after getting all the preshading done I laid the rib tapes using Aviattic WW1 German/ Austro-Hungarian Linen (light) on White paper.

I had to use Mr. Mark Setter as the 1mm strips would pull up on the concave underside of the wing as they dried.





Once dried I trimmed the edges and then did the leading and trailing edges of the wings as well as the wing tips. For this I used a combination of Mr. Mark Softer



Once everything was dried and had set I then applied a coat of Tamiya Clear to really lock things down - I used a 1:3 ratio of Varnish to Tamiya thinner.

Previously to all this I had already used masking tape to make templates of the linen sections for the wings. I decided on one complete section for the whole wing rather than several as I've now got rather used to the feel of these great decals and felt confident that they would lay perfectly on my wings.



This time I didn't use any fixing solution - these went straight down on to the wings and then the water was pushed out using a damp piece of wadded up lint free tissue and then a little heat from a hair dryer to make sure they were fully bedded down on the wings.

After this another coat of Tamiya Clear was applied and they were left to dry and ready for the model decals.







One of the things I love about the Aviattic decals is the impurity of the colouring, there are slight variation across the sheets that you only see on very close inspection and what I feel gives them that very realistic feel to them as in reality the bleaching process would not be identical through out and some areas of the cloth might not be saturated or over saturated with the bleach.



All in all I'm very happy with the progress I got in the such short period of time yesterday, oh and yes I have finally managed to create a more fresh looking finish to my model than the typical used and abused look Although I think a little weathering is required once I've finished all the flight surfaces!

[FarEast]

I've been asked what references I have been using when shading the wings of the aircraft. For this Roland I have used several photos

 

 

Obviously the model will not be in this position when completed so the shading was based on the light source hitting the wing at a different angle but as the light is diffused its almost the same - for those interested I have been using my Japanese Shoji as an base for how the light and shadow work. 



 

[FarEast]

Midweek hobby time is limited due to the job and family but there are a few times where a task can be done while enjoying some down time with he family in the living-room.

This time masking up the top wings ready for preshading.



Almost done - just need to add the ribs


 

[FarEast]

So again limited time on the workbench this weekend however I'm now ready for oil painting the light blue rag rolled effect seen on the Roland.

Saturday I spent the time finishing off the masking and spraying the pre shading ready for the decaling.




Once the paint was dry it was time to get busy with the rib taping!



and finally locking it all down with clear.





The final stage was to mask everything off ready for oil painting - this was done late Sunday night as I wanted the clear coat to have at least 18 hours to cure.



So now its time to start seriously thinking about the method I will use for applying the oil paints.
 

[FarEast]

Hey Jim thank you for the kind words, only the underside of the wings have the rib tape and linen decals the top only has the rib taping done the rest of the effect is paint.

[FarEast]

So last night I came to a decision on the method I would use on the wings, I'm going to use all of them!!!

Well not quite - I decided to make a test sheet - using some scrap plasticard I painted up the the same effects I had on the wing using the exact same methods shown previously - as well as laying the light linen decals I clear varnished and then sectioned off parts to use for testing.

The first was just a simple application of the Aviattic Light blue Linen decal - this will be my control, all the other section will have different techniques both pre and post applied and with and without linen decal paper to see how they look. From there it will be a case of choosing the one I think captures the effect most convincingly.

[FarEast]

so this morning I got some bench time in - and after doing about 6-7 different test samples I already knew which method I was going to use on the 2nd attempt, but I completed the testing regardless as you never know.

I decided to go with the Light Blue (Tamiya X2, XF18 10:1) and heavily sponge it on to the wings and then once dried apply the Aviattic Light Blue Linen decal over the top. The effect was very uneven as well as being somewhat transparent which was the effect I was going for.



And you can't help a little dry fitting!

[FarEast]

So lots of small bits done today;

Radiators and windows were masked and painted - I used the lovely Uschi van der Rosten Steel polishing compound for the radiator grills while the windows received a a coat of black followed by the light blues.





After this I thought I would do some work on the propeller - Using a combinations of acrylics and oils.




But the big thing today was that I decided to crash my Roland!

Although I think that this is probably one of the easiest crashes to replicate...... just a nose down landing

[Fran]

Wow!!!! You`re going Mad James!!! what a piece of art!!! Don`t forget the deadline!  

[FarEast]

So this afternoons activities were canceled due to rain so I was able to do a little more work (Not forgetting the deadline!)

First up finish the prop - Using the exact same colours and techniques as I followed for the actual prop I filled in the areas appropriately - only I didn't give the broken ends any varnish.

I upped the exposure rate so you can see the splinters.





With that done I decided to crack on with the wheel struts - a bit of preshading - the base colour of light blue and then a quick wash saw these done pretty quickly.





Time for a bit of dry fitting and posing.

[FarEast]

Thank you Lukas - I also see there has been a huge influx in people purchasing Roland kits!

Right small jobs - so after going over the manual for the billionth time I noticed that the tires on the Roland seem to be contoured rubber tires (I never knew these were about in those days but apparently it was very common)



So the idea was to use real natural rubber O' rings that I purchased from Steven Robson (maker of those incredible spoke wheels) However the size I needed were too fat - over inflated and perfectly tubular, not the look I was going for!

So after mashing up a quick holder for the Dremel I went about shaping the tires.

Before and After


Then making up some quick masks for the wheel covers I painted up the rest of the wheel.

This is how they look with the standard rubber O-ring without shapping!


And then with the shaped tire!



Then attached to the struts, however these are dry fitted as one will be removed for the crash.





And then dry fitting on the fuselage


 

[FarEast]

Apparently someone has made the accusation that I don't actually build my models and that some one who has only been in the hobby for a little over a year can't possibly produce the level of model that I am.

Now I have to say I found it rather amusing and also a compliment but I have a confession to make, I do have some help.......I have a human that unscrews the paints for me before I begin and cuts the really small pieces off the sprue for me.

[FarEast]

Right enough of the silly business - so this weekend I got a lot of the smaller details done.

First up the exhaust system and surrounding cowlings, the image shows a very clean and fresh looking Roland and it looks like the condition of the exhaust is also fairly new so I decided to make a break from the norm and go for a newish looking one.

Now I remember reading about how another member did this - search as I may I couldn't find the post nor could I remember the name of the member so I had to guess my way through this.  - but to whom ever it was that posted how to paint metallic looking exhausts thank you! It inspired me!

The method I used was after giving the whole exhaust a base of black, I then dry brushed in one direction and in patches Flat Aluminum, steel and Metallic greys.

Then using Vallejo Rust Effect set and also the MIG AMMO streaking Rust went about trying to create something that looked like the onset of rust.