Alberto
Very nice start, watching 👀

bughunter
At first glance I thought of 1:48, but so much the fancier 👍

Thomas Haberl - TH SCALE MODELS Autor
welcome @Alberto and thanks for your nice feedback. Also thanks @bughunter 🙂 I love working in this small scale and I do this beside the massive CH-54 - tricky to work in different scales but I missed working in 1/72 ...

Alec K
Taking a seat for sure 👍

Edward MacKenzie
I'm in, very interested in this build

Thomas Haberl - TH SCALE MODELS Autor
Welcome @Alec and @Edward! Both cockpits are finished and fuselage half are going to be put together now. I just took a few closeups - D-20 is OOB and D-5 is made from Eduard resin print. I bought the cockpit print and the kit at the same time and after finishing both there pros and cons on each, but I would not spend extra money for that - the kit cockpit is very highly detailed. What is your opinion? BTW - I saw some cotton bud fibers in the pics now - that will be cleaned up ... in this sale it´s so hard to see that with the naked eyes ... Looking forward to your feedback. Thanks all

bughunter
Looking great, as I said not like 1:72 👍
Your seats with belts looks good - I wonder why Eduard sells now 3D printed seats with seat belts on the seat?! Makes the paint job complicated 🙁
Example: F4U-2 Seat With Integral Belts PRINT (Eduard 6481048, 1:48)

Thomas Haberl - TH SCALE MODELS Autor
thanks @bughunter - the side panels on the D-5 are also from the resin print set. In 1/72 and 1/48 I like using PE seat belts. In bigger scales they are too flat. Thanks for sharing this - I didn't know that they offer this now - I agree with you that I don't see any benefit on this. That is interesting, indeed.

bughunter
If available for a type I prefer HGW belts. Eduard is at least involved with providing the metal parts for the sets.

Alec K
I think the printed seat belts are more realistic looking, despite drawbacks with painting. This works well in 1/72. Steel is just too rigid, plus they flake on me sometimes.

Simon O'Gorman
The detail is amazing! Especially for a 1:72. Great work.

Edward MacKenzie
I am really impressed mate. Wow...

Thomas Haberl - TH SCALE MODELS Autor
@Alec: did you already try it? I would be interested in the result. @Simon and @Edward: many thanks for your nice feedback - appreciate it a lot and I´m glad you like it.

Jakub Fiala
Excellent work on cockpits 👍

Alec K
Thomas, I have not. I should qualify my statement: I think they look more realistically shaped (twists and bends) than what can be done with Eduard PE or steel belts. How well one can paint the 3D printed ones remains, for me, to be seen.

Thomas Haberl - TH SCALE MODELS Autor
@Jakub: many thanks for your nice feedback - appreciate it a lot! @Alec: I thought you might have done a printed seat - no worries and I hope you didn't get this wrong .. I'm really interested in how a seat with printed belts looks like. I think in 1/48 and bigger it can be nice, but 1/72 would be really tough to paint.

Alec K
🙂 👍

Michael Kohl
I build the Tamiya one, but Eduard doesn't have to fear the comparison. You brought all those details nicely to effect with your paint job. Anxious for more.

Alec K
Forgot to ask: how do you do your dark wash (interior side walls, specifically)?

Thomas Haberl - TH SCALE MODELS Autor
@Micheal: don't make me blushing .... @Alec: well, good question and I have to say I didn't apply any wash on the panels. What I did was black primer and a real heavy dry brush with white or off-white. And then I sprayed a thin layer of interior green in 90° to the panels to get a kind of base coloring. Final layers were then applied from a smaller angle (almost 90° to the wings just to explain). With this technique the shadows created them by themselves. I then used very little amount of black panel liner to pop out the smallest details. Let me know if I could explain understandable ... not en English native 😝

Alec K
Aha, thanks for the explanation (very clear and concise 👍. I think I have read about this somewhere, but the dry brushing with white is new to me. The effect is very nice imho 👍

Thomas Haberl - TH SCALE MODELS Autor
Welcome Alec - any time ☺️ if I do dry brush after painting main color I would match the color. If you do it directly on black primer you have the highest contrast and you are able to blend with main color until it's just enough visible to pop the edges a bit. So can create a bit of depth at least this was my idea 🤷‍♂️

Michael Kohl
You achieved a nice 3D-effect with this technique. Maybe you wanna try to spray pure highly diluted plain white from your imaginary light source afte the black primer. On top of that come light coats of the base color. This gives you highlights and shadows in a pretty natural way. I like it with figures and cockpits.

Alec K
Thomas, I think you have succeeded. Thanks again for the detailed how-to. And thank you Michael for the optional airbrush highlight technique tip 👍

Thomas Haberl - TH SCALE MODELS Autor
@Michael: thanks - I used this technique one the figure I made for my Fw190 vignette, but I haven't thought on this on a cockpit. In my opinion this technique probably does not pop the edges as much as dry brush done before spraying the main color. Maybe a combination is good in bigger scales ... I will think of it on my next builds. @Alec: welcome and thanks for your positive feedback ☺️

Rui S
Looking Great 👍

Thomas Haberl - TH SCALE MODELS Autor
many thanks @Rui! appreciate your kind feedback. I was able to work a bit on the the D-5 and I want to share a quick update on one of the two P-51´s. I decided to give the D5 open engine cowlings and gun bays as Eduard released the prints recently. The engine is only dry fitted and only shows the main components no. In total you can see an assembly of about 10 components. I´m really impressed by the quality of the prints

Thomas Haberl - TH SCALE MODELS Autor
D-5 bearer is ready for assembly

Thomas Haberl - TH SCALE MODELS Autor
Packard V-1650-7 Merlin ready to put inside the bearer

bughunter
That is damn nice word 👍 Would be happy if it look like this in 1:48!

Michael Kohl
Incredibly detailled and very nicely painted. Wow.

Thomas Haberl - TH SCALE MODELS Autor
thanks much @bughunter! It´s always nice to read - building was a flawless little sub-project and I really enjoyed it (like not always in this scale) ☺

Thomas Haberl - TH SCALE MODELS Autor
Thanks Michael - appreciate your nice feedback 🙂 it might look complicated but it was a real flawless assembly. The only challenging thing was to add a lot of 0.2 lead wires ... I will share some pictures of the completed front section soon. It´s already done but I couldn´t take pictures yet

gorby
WOW, remarkable work! 😮

Alec K
It indeed is. I think there can be little argument that Eduard is THE premier manufacturer of our era. Between their quality, output and outreach to us modelers, I can't think of their equal.

Pepe
Genial

Thomas Haberl - TH SCALE MODELS Autor
Many thanks for all your nice feedback! Appreciated a lot 😊 @Alec: I´m not sure if I understand what you want to say. I read that like: with Eduard it´s easy to do like this. Please let me know, if I understood correctly. Thanks

Martin Weinpold
Wow!!!

Dave Flitton
Wow. Please don't make me buy this kit if you make a beautiful model. I have enough as it is. Too late, I see myself buying. Keep going, this will be a masterwork.

Thomas Haberl - TH SCALE MODELS Autor
Many thanks @Martin and @Dave! Appreciate your nice words! @Dave: I am sorry ... the kit gives so much detail, it´s not a big deal to make something acceptable out of it. If you go for it or any aftermarket: think about the 3D print cockpit - as you can see in the older pics in this album I do a D-20 OOB at the same time. In my opinion the 3D printed cockpit is not a must, the sprues provide more than enough details. The engine + engine bearer surprised me a lot with superb fit, clever part separation and a flawless assembly.

Alec K
Hi Thomas - yes, I was trying to say that Eduard does a very good job making models. That said, it still takes a great modeler to make it all look great. Here you have surely succeeded 👍

Thomas Haberl - TH SCALE MODELS Autor
thanks @Alec! I´m not a native English speaker so I asked to get it right! Indeed the superb engineering from eduard combined with the new direct 3D printing technology makes it way more easier for us modellers. Absolutely no doubt about that! Even if you would say, that it´s just a bit of paint on some printed parts I would be fine with that. I probably would not agree, knowing that I used roughly 0.5m of lead wire and glued all in place without messing up the section with CA glue - but that´s a different story 😆 Everyone should be allowed to share his thoughts and we should be glad about that. Thanks again for any feedback - happy modelling!

Mirko Römer
Following, looks awesome

Lorraine Lin
The interiors and the engine looking amazing, not just because the 3D printing details, the painting job is awesome too!