Corsair getting some love
As I wait for decals I produced to be printed by a third party vendor (for the Enterprise CVN-80), I decided to shift focus back to the 1/32 Tamiya F4U-1D Corsair. With much of the aircraft built, the next stage is painting.
I want my Corsair to be pretty beat up, with a fair amount of worn, chipped, and distressed paint (e.g., salt air, sun fading). This is a challenging thing to do properly - subtle goes a long way with this sort of thing; it’s easy to get carried away when weather a subject.
First, I applied a coat of Mr. Primer Surfacer 1000 (1:1 mix with Mr. Color leveling thinner). This mix works exceptionally well and is my go-to as a base coat. Over that, a thin coat of Alclad II Duraluminum, followed by Alcald gloss coat, both straight from the bottle.
After letting this dry, my plan is to spray a light coat of AK Worn Effects, a light coat of AK Zinc Chromate Yellow, and another light coat of AK Worn Effects. After a few hours dry time, a coat of USN Sea Blue 71.295 will top things off. After that dries, the fun begins. First, I think I will burnish the top coat with low-grit sandpaper to wear the surface a bit. Then, with water, a scumbling brush, and toothpicks, the plan is to chip the paint. If things go well, an interesting effect showing paint worn off the zinc chromate “primer” dominating while the metallic coat below shows through in highly worn areas. This can be seen in real aircraft stationed throughout the Pacific during WWII, mostly on the wings, less so elsewhere. Somewhere in there I will use 1ManArmy stencils then apply washes, then fuel and exhaust stains.
Something tells me that I need to test this on a scrap bird before I take things any further…
