Hogging the airbrush

European 1

After slacking off for a considerable time I finally got myself at a table with my paints, airbrush and the compressor. This time choosing the paints was an easy operation, for some reason I had just chosen the earlier avoided European 1 ("Charcoal and lizard") pattern. While checking up my sources I had just written a note for myself saying ""Euro1: dark green; light[er] green; d-grey" and with that in hand I started going through my bottles.

To accompany the grey primer I had dug out some grey (VMA 71123 USAF Dark Grey), green (VMA 71124 USAF Green) and some other green (VMA 096 Panzer Olive Green). From the different options available these pleased my eyes the most. After that was done I took one last look at a couple of sample photos on the computer and went to my painting station.

To work

On top of the primer I airbrushed a proper layer of the lighter of greens, over and under. This'd be the base on which I'd build the rest of the weird pattern.

Without further ado I loaded my Badger with the darker of the greens and tried to build up a pattern that somehow worked for me. As is well and widely known, I don't really give a rat's arse about real life examples, individual photos or anything but instead freehand these things.

Of course I didn't remember to take a photo of this intermediate step but I guess that wasn't a cardinal mistake. As soon as that was done I added grey into the paint container and touched up some tactically chosen spots on my model.

In case you, dear reader, notice something being a bit off, you aren't alone. I noticed that myself while checking the photos. Yes, the rear wing setup is slightly tilted, thanks to the bad fit and the filing it required. Life is hard and the plane is twisted, can't do a thing about it now, as I'm no way going to tear it off and potentially destroying the whole construction.

The freshest status of the project can be seen below. I don't think the pattern ended up looking too shabby. A purist might of course yelp, especially as I intend to use whatever weapons I happen to feel like using, not caring if they were even a daydream in their designer's minds when E1 pattern was in use :)