By Kristof Pulinckx Airfix 1/72 A04019

Bristol Beaufigther
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This small tutorial will show you how I achieved the

finish on this Bristol Beaufighter using techniques
mainly used on armoured models.

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1 The inner details and the cockpit are quite basic, but more than enough 2 The door of the wheel bay have nasty sinkholes, and easy solution to fill
for an 1/72 scale kit. them is to glue a disk made with the punch& Die of the same diameter
in place and when dry sand it smooth.

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3 The tips of the propeller are first sprayed yellow and later masked. 4 This was done to paint them together with some parts of the interior in
Nato Black.

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5 Details are hand painted and some 6 When everything has it’s appropriate color
highlight are added to the interior. a dark brown wash is applied over the
whole interior to create some depth.

7 The seam that exists after the fuselage

parts are glued together is filled with
superglue and sanded smooth. The seams
between the fuselage and the wings is a
7 bit too wide. The seam is filled with Mr
Surfacer and set to dry for 10 minutes.

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8 With some tissue paper moist with Xtreme Cleaner the excess putty is 9 The landing gear is assembled and test fitted. This will be left separate
removed leaving only putty there where it supposed to be, in the seam. for easier painting and weathering.

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10 When the complete model is ready to paint the canopies are

masked with Maskol.

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11 The underside is painted first. We apply a basecoat

of Light Gull Grey, and afterwards instead of
highlighting the inner surfaces of the panel I
decided to highlight the panelines and details. It’s
working the other way around.

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12 The top surface is painted first with RAF Ocean Grey. 13 And by adding first some white to the base color here also the panelines
are sprayed in a lighter tone.

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15 The masking for the D-day stripes takes up some time if you want to do
14 The front parts of the engine cowlings and the exhaust are painted with it decent. Some measurements need to be taking to make sure all lines
Bronze from teh Xtreme Metal range. are evenly wide.

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16 Before we paint on the white parts we first apply some Maskol with a
toothpick. Later after painting the Maskol will be removed and we have
immediately some chipping effects.

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17 With a sponge we apply some Maskol to the 18 When the White paint is on and dry we can start masking the areas that
front parts of the cowlings as well. need to remain white.

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19 We use Nato Black instead of pure black, this just looks more natural.
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20 When all the masking tape is removed the model is

sprayed with several layers of Tamiya X-22 to have
a nice smooth gloss coat to put the decals on.

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21 The decals from the kit are really nice, and include a fair number of 22 When dried, the whole model is sprayed with Ultra Matte Varnish, and
stencil, that are found often on airplanes. believe me this is real Matt!

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23 The panelines are accentuated with the paneliner for green and grey 24 With a flat bruh damped in White spirit the excess paneliner can easily
camouflages. Don’t worry if you spill some paint. be removed. But take care you do this in the direction of flight.

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25 When all the panelines are done the look of the airplane will change 26 Paneliner for sand and desert camouflage is used to give the wheels a
dramatically. wash.

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27 The same color is also used to accentuate the panelines on the 28 In this scale chipping must be done very careful. We use a lighter
underside of the model. tone of the basecoat for this process. We concentrate on the edges
of the panels. But with our chippings we also highlight some parts
of the panels.

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29 The landing gear is given a wash with..the wash for landing gear. 30 The edges or the props are chipped with a grey
tone to mimic wear and tear.

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31 The cylinders of the engines are after being painted in dark grey polish 32 The wheels are given a wash mixed from Europe Earth pigments and
with Dark steel pigment to give them a metal finish. White Spirit.

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34 At the tail wheel we applied some dark

brown enamel paint ( AK 2072 ) and let it
dry for 5 minutes.

33 Streakings are painted on with the 35 With a damped brush we blend the paint in
same colors used for accentuating the until it looks like accumulated dirt thrown
panelines. up by the tail wheel while the airplane is
taxiing.
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36 The same color is used to get some light streaking effects on the side of 37 And after 5 minutes they are blended in with a moist brush.
the hull. First we paint on some lines.

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38 The brown soot on the exhaust stains are done with Dark Earth 39 And the soot on the canons is done with black pigments apply dry.
Pigments.

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40 Some oil stains are painted on with Aircraft engine

oil.

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