Speedwagon Versus The C-47 Skytrain or tales of woe from a rank amature

[Speedwagon]

Well I decided to build the Airfix C47 Skytrain as my 3rd build after completely messing up an Airfix 1/72 Spitfire (1st) and a Tamiya 1/48 Harrier FRS1 (2nd) Both ended up flying across the room crashing and burning into a wall I watched UKGuyintheUSA's you tube build video a few times and thought this would be an excellent model to try out my newly acquired building and painting skills. So new Airbrush and new tools in hand off I started well if it could go wrong it went wrong with this build. (Nothing to do with the kit or the advice weened from UKguy and Paul's excellent tuition vids.) but a lot to do with the cramped space I am forced to work in at the moment (small box room that houses my computer) and my kak handedness Everything was going fine up to and including the precoat, then it came to masking for the underside airbrushing, the masking was a terrible job and I still have not mastered it; the masking for the side windows was ok I followed Martins video and it went well but then the cockpit was a nightmare so I am not happy with that either. so to painting the underside,
first I used the wrong colour; dark sea grey instead of light sea grey and when I noticed that I dropped the air brush bending the needle. Even Lee's tutorial on fixing a bent needle could not help, so a new airbrush was ordered.
The next problem arose when painting the white d-day stripes, I inadvertently bought Tamiya X2 instead of the XF2 and did not realise this I just thought it was my newly acquired air brushing skills letting me down.
Masking for the black stripes turned into a nightmare as well I just could not get the black lines to look right. They still do not look right but I pushed on.
The black stripes for the walkway on the wings are part of the decal kit but I thought it would be good practice to mask them and paint them on. It was but they do not look right either.
Next the decals no matter what I did I could not get the I on the wing to sit down properly. one recessed panel line looks good and the decal sat down well into it, but the others did not. This happened a lot and I still do not know what I did wrong


You can see this on the bars and stars on the other wing as well





I also broke a "J" off of one of the decals for the front side they should read J8 but now only read 8 because I had to even up both sides.
Then all the way through the build I had been very careful of the aerial anchor point on the tail I just new I was going to break it off, lo and behold came to spray the matt varnish finnish on the plane and I noticed it had disappeared, I found this on the floor (very lucky) and glued it back on.
Next I came to string the aerial and the mid section anchor point had gone I still do not know how I broke this or where it went (the carpet monster must have eaten it). Any how I cut the head off a map pin and painted it black and stuck this with super glue and it worked.

Things that went right :- I liked the weathering wash effect this took many tries as I had never got this far with the previous models I ended up using a soft pastel wash using brown and black pastel dust mixed with water and a drop of washing up liquid.
I also used some fishing line coloured with a permanent marker for the aerial and this looks ok too.
All in all I really enjoyed the build process the kit is very nice and if you need a proper build review check out Martins video on youtube https://youtu.be/mXLP5zmj3rI I will probably buy this again when I have honed my skills and see what the difference is maybe in a year or two

so the C-47 is not claiming a victory over speedwagon this time around. I am still enthusiastic and eager to learn and cannot wait to start my next build which will be a fokker DR.1 and yes it will be red
I really wish I had taken more photos of the build process but the way this build went I probably would have dropped the camera on the model and broken it or the camera.
So off to dig the little fokker out of my stash and get started

[Sturm]

Cool plane, What scale is this?

[Speedwagon]

Hi Sturm, the scale is 1/72