1/500 Bandai Space Battleship Yamato_05
Been a while on this, and apologies as had an eye issue that stopped me from painting, but now to get back onto the fine work.
Time to finish off painting the “Black Tiger” fighters by using a very small brush, a steady hand and thinned matt black paint I slowly filled in-between the lines and allowed the first coat to dry.
While the first coat was drying, thought it was time to prime the Cosmo Zero and Cosmo Tiger II fighters in grey ready for their painting later. as these are small only one light grey coat was needed.
Now back to the “Black Tigers” now they are dry and I’m still in the calm frame of mind. did the second coat the same way as the first, and when dry painted the cockpit canopy in thinned light blue. I’m very happy how these have come out with being so small and can see the yellow arrow details on the top of the fuselage.
Next day and the eyes and steady hands still in force I got the Cosmo Zero and Tiger II’s finished. With them staying mainly grey they just needed the colour details and a bit of panel lining on the wing flaps to bring them out how I wanted.
So I did not loose, damage the fighters or scratch the paint I glued them onto the stand straight after they had dried.
Where the LED fits for the main rear engine I airbrushed some Molotow “Liquid Chrome” into the inner nozzle to help with reflecting the light. This paint drys very quick & produces a very good reflective appearance.
Might be odd to say, but now comes the panel lining, which I actually enjoy. The hull has very good deep panel lines all along the hull and added side parts. With the hull being a dark grey I went with black for the lining effects. I decided to do it in stages so started with the bow section. i used thinned black enamel and just let it flow into the recessed a and trying not to get too much to come over the edges.
I left it to dry for a couple of hours, then with some drops of enamel thinners dropped onto an old lens cloth so as not to get any lint or fluff on the paint I gently rubbed away the excess enamel back to the acrylic red & grey.
One tip an old model maker gave me was after the first pass of removing the excess paint leave it another couple of hours & then do it again to remove a bit more but also to rub a slightly wider area as this can help with the blending between the panel lines and the other colours. The kit way then left for another couple of hours to allow the thinners to fully evaporate before doing some more.
Slowly but surely I worked my way down the Yamato’s hull checking how it was going and refilling where required.
The side of the hull looking good to me, and the slight “gap” at the top where the smaller side turrets and side launch bays meet looks better now panel lined and blended.
Now all the panel lining has been done, it’s just a case of fitting all the smaller parts and main rear engine that could have got broken while moving it around when panel lining.
