Eduard 7078 Bf 108 Taifun

I think the AK markers are superb, and the more I use them the better I get. The trouble with photos is that you just see imperfections, but you never see them when the model is finished and sitting on a shelf! 

The assembled cockpit, I went for the option with the canisters in the cockpit, just for fun really. I'm pretty pleased with my attempt to make the seats look worn, but I know there are plenty of people out there way better at it than I am 

I thought about trying to get a wood ring effect on the wooden part of the propeller, but decided to leave that for another day! 

As usual with me it was a faff to get everything in OK, I think I just don't plan ahead too well sometimes.  

I needed to put filler in, thanks to my lack of planning with the cockpit, but I'm now getting good enough at that so that you can't tell unless you look close enough, so progress! ? 

Liquid mask will hopefully preserve my aluminium cockpit... I used a pencil to do some primitive pre-shading on the panel lines, I've had success doing that before. I usually do it well on the underside and poorly on the top, so I was quite determined to do it properly on both this time 

I decided that the decals might clash a bit with the paint colour, so I had the genius idea of photocopying them and using them as templates. It worked (kinda)! 

You can still see my pre-shading here, so pleased with that. 

The codes are oversprayed on the plane, but apparently the crosses aren't, so I carefully cut the decals and then on this side, totally misjudged the distance between them! Oh well. 

As you can see, I am very professional at masking now... 

I used Vallejo Andrea Blue mixed with a drop of Glacier Blue on the top and MIG RLM65 on the underside and lower fueslage. MIG paints are very satin, but Vallejo are very matt indeed. Not actually sure which I prefer. 

I didn't bother glossing the underside prior to applying decals because the MIG paint is so satin-y. This is where I am as at creating this album. If you look closely you can see that when I removed my photocopied snake mask, the blu-tac I was using pulled the film off the decals. I had read that it is possible to do this with Eduard decals if you are careful, but I'm not, so I didn't think about it and so the numbers are no longer over-sprayed. After a bit of swearing I just decided to carry on! Another lesson learned. 

This is the first time I've actually put as much or more effort into the top side than the underside of a plane, I don't really know why. Apart from the mess up with the codes on this side of the fuselage I think it looks good, despite the top of the decals coming off with the mask! 

I used the AK weathering pencils for this, mainly Streaking Dirt, Smoke, Earth Brown and Medium Rust, as well as Aluminium. I also used a few Ammo Oilbrushers. 

For some stupid reason I attached the PE cockpit opener handles and the grab handles before painting and I have no idea why. I obviously knocked them all off and lost one of each. In the end I just decided not to bother re-attaching the ones I found, but as usual, lesson learned! 

I did put mud/earth on the tyres (these are the resin ones, the kit ones are quite poor) but you can't really see here.