Step by Step #1 – Tiger Model Russian Spitfire

We want to start our first building log with an easy-to-built kit and without spending a lot of time with glue, putty or sanding paper.

The right choice is a Spitfire from Tiger Model cute planes series. We want to show our way of coloring and using painting masks.

WHAT WE NEED

• Tiger Model Spitfire Kit #105
• Heroes Models Canopy Mask
• Heroes Models Wheels
• Heroes Models Custom Painting Mask for Russian Spitfire
• Colors
  • Gray primer (Mr.Paint MRP-084)
  • Interior Green RAF (Mr.Paint MRP-111)
  • Medium Sea Grey (Mr.Paint MRP-112)
  • Dark green RAF (Mr.Paint MRP-110)
  • Ocean Grey (Mr.Paint MRP-115)
  • Flat White (Tamiya XF-2)
  • Red (Tamiya X-7)
  • White Aluminium (Mr.Paint MRP-009)
  • Clear Matt (Mr.Paint MRP-127)
• Thinner (Laquer Thinner Tamiya )
• Washing
  • Neutral Wash by MIG
  • Black Watercolor
• Tamiya Weathering Master
• Basic modeling tools (Tape, knife, ecc. ecc.)

LET’S START!

Just a quick precisation before starting to read. We used Harder & Steenbeck Evolution airbrush with 0.2 needle.  All the colors were used straight from the bottle. When we add thinner we specify the proportions in the round brackets. Pressure range was 0.5-0.8 bar.

1. The kit is very simple to build and the fitting is very nice. Only seatbelts were added on cockpit. It was colored with Interior Green with some particular colored with Valejo paints by brush.
2. I didn’t like the bomb included in the kits. For this reason, I filled his hollow with a piece of plastic. Some minor gaps near cannons were filled with epoxy putty. I used a little bit of CA glue to delete the fuselage lines, and polished it with sanding paper and nail files.
3. We painted all the planes with grey primer and we started to work on underside. A layer of Medium Sea Grey and some lights and shadow were added with thin white and dark grey (90% thinner+10% color) always from MRP colors.
4. We masked all the underside with tamiya tape and maskol. We used patafix (also known as Blue Tack) on the edges for a soft separation between colors.
5. We masked canopy with Heroes Models mask  and  freehand painted all the plane with Ocean Grey and Dark green. 
6. We worked on base color to do a little bit of weathering. We used white on ocean grey and yellow on green (80% thinner+10%color) and some dark spots.
7. We made some very thin layers of the original colors (95%thinner+5%color) to make uniform, grey on grey, green on green. It’s very important to wait between the layers, it’s easy to cover all the work. You must wait for colors drying and evaluate if another layer is needed. Patience is needed to make a good work.
8. The next step was painting the insignia with masks. These were custom masks that I designed for this models, if you need the same masks contact us, if you need something different we can customize masks or decal. We started to position the masks needed for the white color, two 65 and the stars.
9. We masked the zones near the masks to prevent the overspray and we colored with Tamiya flat white (80%thinner+20%color). It was importat to use a very thin color, sprayed in several layers, to avoid to add too much thickness that could result visible. We used laquer thinner with Tamiya colors because it improves the coverage of the colors.
10. The red color of russian stars needed more attentions. We covered the white outlines of the stars with the masks. It was important to do a good centering work. To avoid surprises we masked the edge of the masks.
11. We sprayed the Tamiya red, always very thin (80%thinner+20% color). I used a gloss color but if you have the flat one it is better, it’s more easy to use when very thin.
12. And now, the moment of the truth!
13. We masked the exhausts and sprayed with flat black. When dried we made a dry-brush with some shades of browns. We used the same black on the resin wheels and used the masks included  to color with aluminium.
14. We sprayed a layer of clear gloss on the entire model and made washisng with MIG products. On the aluminuim of the wheels we used watercolor black. When the wash dried, we sprayed several layer of flat clear on the entire model.  Finally we added some dirt with the Tamiya weathering set and some chipping with silver pencil.

The finished model

I hope you like the model and find the step-by-step useful . Follow us on Facebook to know when we’ll post the next!