1/48 Airfix Spitfire Mk.I - LV-N "Jumper"

[AAC]

After a little time away from the bench I’m getting back to it and decided to start on this one…


I’ve heard the new tools from Airfix are very good all be it with a few gripes about panel lines and such but at the end of the day it will (unless I stuff-up completely) look like a Spitfire.

I also got a little after market for it (and it’s brothers… yes I have some more to bore you with, but that’s for another day), an instrument panel and a harness.

Here are all the bits with some initial colour added


And now on with the cockpit construction








With a bit more work the cockpit is all finished and the fuselage is closed up


Now for a bit of re-scribing


Now on with the wings


I didn’t follow the instructions here so instead of putting the wing together before fitting it to the fuselage I put the lower half of the wing on first and put the tops on to help minimise gaps, which were very small to non-existent







Time to paint! I decided to do the one with the big yellow nose (LV-N) as I’ve always wanted to do it since I discovered it while trolling the net




Because I a bit of a perfectionist I like my cammo markings to look like the ones on instructions so I got some masks for the job, once the Dark Earth (my variant using Tamiya paints at lease) I applied the masks and then on with the Dark Green (Mr Colour Aqueous)


Then on with the Yellow nose (Lemon apparently). There has been some debate about this but it was definitely yellow (the pilot said so) however the exact shade is a mystery


With everything done just a few fixups to do


And this is where I’m at now




I hope you didn’t mind the “build in a post”, I’ve been taking pictures as I’ve been going but just haven’t sat down to post them.

As always any comments or feedback is welcome.

[ambientdan]

Lovely lovely cockpitting there

[Stokesy44]

Nice job on the camo and nose. Lovely cockpit too, that after market IP and harness

What are your plans for washing, weathering etc, battered or factory fresh? Looking good either way.

[Twokidsnosleep]

Great build indeed, you guys keep raising the bar on cockpit detailing, WOW
I like the yellow shnoz on her...had to steal that gorgeous in flight photo you posted

[AAC]

Here’s the final build update for the “Jumper”. I didn’t take any photos of the intervening bits as there’s not much to see unless you like looking at a shiny version of the same paint scheme .

Stokesy44 I kept the weathering to a minimum as I like them that way and as these were training aircraft I don't think they'd look too beat-up anyway .

The decals went down well in the end but I resorted to X20A to do it which quite surprised me. The last time I did an Airfix with Cartograf decals I only needed Micro Set/Sol. Well these are bigger being 1/48 and the others were 1/72.

One thing that has become apparent is that I’ll need a bigger photo booth .

Here are a couple of shots of the bestie and a link to the final reveal section.





Thanks for looking.

[JifJaf]

That looks awesome!

[Vindicare]

very cool!

those camouflage masks are yummy!

are they reusable?

[AAC]

very cool!

those camouflage masks are yummy!

are they reusable?

I don't think there not meant to be but I found when you remove them carefully, which isn't hard to do, it looks like they can be without a problem .

[digger303]

Nicely done