Tamiya's 1/48 scale
Supermarine Spitfire Vb

by Anthony Manzoli

Tamiya's 1/48 scale Spitfire Vb Tropical kit is available online from Squadron.com

Here is Tamiya's 1/48 scale Spitfire Mk. Vb Trop.

I have always found this colourful scheme to be the most appealing of all the spitfire schemes used during WWII.

Construction of the kit was very straight forward. Absolutely no filler was necessary. I built the kit out of the box, only adding fuse wire for the brake lines. I will be adding some seat belts next.

The kit has been painted using Gunze acrylics Dark Earth and Middle stone on the upper surface and Vallejo Azul on the lower surface. I used the kits camouflage guide by cutting it out and applying it on the model with small amounts of Blue Tac under the edges. By doing this, it allows for a soft edge on the camouflage.

Once the kit was painted, I proceeded to apply some weathering by fading the paint by adding a few drops of flat white to the colours and hitting the panels. The kit was then sprayed with Shine Magic for the gloss coat and allowed to dry for 12 hours and then the kit was decaled.

The kit decals were used and with Micro set and Micro Sol they performed well.

After the kit was allowed to sit over night I followed up with another light coat of Shine Magic, and finished the weathering by adding Citadel brown ink to the panel lines.

The last step was adding Tamiya flat base to the Shine Magic for the final matte coat. I decided the kit was not weathered enough, so I shaded the panel lines with very diluted Tamiya smoke and reapplied the matte coat with more Flat Base added to it to give a more faded look to the camouflage.

I am very happy with the result.

Click on the thumbnails below to view larger images:

Model, Images and Text Copyright © 2005 by Anthony Manzoli
Page Created 01 February, 2005
Last Updated 01 February, 2005

Back to HyperScale Main Page