Pilot and accessories for an RC Mustang

My first attempt at printing my models ended up pretty nice! Software that I used was Softimage XSI and Zbrush.

The parts just arrived yesterday and I've been really happy with the results! I haven't found any flaws or printing errors. The detail level I made for it seems to be spot on, and everything printed out nice and sharp.

I made these parts for my Hyperion Mustang P-51D radio controlled plane, which I'm building at the moment. It's a pretty decent sized electric plane, with 1.2 meter wingspan, balsa wings and fiberglass fuselage. The kit is pretty awesome as is, but I thought it really needed some detail, especially inside the cockpit, which was bare without any detail. The scale of the plane and these parts is approximately 1/9. The sight has grooves so I can place a piece of transparent plastic as sight's lens.

And because these are for an actually flying aircraft, the weight is quite light, as I modelled them to be hollow. The pilot weights 18.4 grams, pilot's backseat with radio batteries weights 14.6 grams and instrument panel with combat sight weights only 5.3 grams. So the weight shouldn't be an issue.

I'll make these parts available pretty soon.

Next I'm going to paint these parts with Vallejo acrylics. I'll update when there's more progress.

Thumbs up for Shapeways!

very sharp looking pilot.

almost looks like he shouldn't be painted... then again, seeing what people on these boards are capable of, perhaps it should.

congrats on your first print.

Wow! That looks great!

Not only the print is amazing the model is also amazing!
Pleaae show us more


Now i need to get back working

Absolutely wow !

How many polygons did you have on this model?

this is awesome good use of shapeways and a great model.

Thanks! I'm quite overwhelmed...

To answer the questions: The pilot has the most of the polys, total of 103K triangles. The cockpit parts have only 16,5K. With the pilot, in some place there could be less polys and in couple of places I might smooth out a little more, but otherwise seems more than enough for it's smooth curves.

I'll definitely keep you posted. I'm planning to start the paintjob during the following weekend. And I think I'll do couple of very little tweaks and then I'll make these models available for everyone.

I'm happy to tell you that my Shapeways Shop has just been activated.

And surprise, surprise... My first and definitely not the last objects available from my shop are my pilot and cockpit accessories! The pilot is a separate piece, if you want only him and not the RC model related extras.

I've just airbrushed the pilot and parts with grey primer and sanded them couple of times to smoothen out the surfaces a little bit. Next phase is painting primary colors, after that the shading. Painting the huge plane has taken most of my time, though... I've painted it too with grey primer, then metallic paint and after that the olive drab anti-glare panel, d-day stripes and 20th Fighter Group's nose markings. My next phase with the plane is the actual unit markings and the weathering effects.

Your plane is looking real good... can't wait to see it finished.

Finally had time to paint the cockpit parts.

Nice work!

Wow! Incredible post-production work here. Awesome job!

Thanks!

I've been asked about my methods, so I'll tell a little about it.

I've used only Vallejo acrylics, as they're easy to paint both with brush and airbrush. These are same paints I've used for my plane and smaller scale model airplane (non-flying).

The first process was needed to make the WSF-material smoother, as it's quite coarse at first. Some people have used a thick layer of primer or some other paint or lacquer to do this, but I wanted to keep the paint layers as thin as possible, so it wouldn't add too much weight.

First I painted the model with Vallejo grey primer, spraying it with an airbrush, so I get smooth even surface and could easily cover even the deepest grooves. After that I sanded the surfaces I could reach with real fine sandpaper (I think it was 600 grit wetsand paper, but without adding water). But I see no reason why you'd absolutely need airbrush, as you can just sand it smooth and use a bit thinned paint. Then I painted it again, sanded and after third layer of primer paint, I thought the parts were smooth enough for primary colours. I left the models to dry after this for a few days.

First I painted the pilot with leather brown mixed with black, as a darker base color for the pilot and olive green mixed with black for the seat/batteries and pure black for the intrument panel.

Next I painted all the parts with a thinned primary color, keeping the grooves darker. Face got skin color, seat belts got khaki, leather jacket got a mixture of leather brown and "hull red" to make it a little more red. Metal parts I painted black.

Shading for the pilot was done in layers, with very thinned paint, so each layer was a bit translucent. I started with the darkest shades, using lighter and lighter color in each layer. I didn't use that many layers some miniature painters use, as the model doesn't need that accurate details. The last and the thinnest layers were primary colors mixed with a little bit of white.

The seat, batteries and the instrument panel were drybrushed with only a couple of passes. Last was the metal colors and little details like pilot eyes and scratches on surfaces, which I decided just to paint with one layer, as they were just small details.

Is that the new urethane based primer? The one in 60 or 200 ml bottles, white, grey or black.

Wow, Beautiful model and paint job, well done

I don't think so. I bought it in 17ml small bottle, "Model Air" series. Serial 71097. Says it's acrylic. With airbrush it lasts pretty long, although bad habit to get stuck in the nozzle once a while. I'm only using my second bottle after painting one 1:32 plane model and the fuselage for my RC mustang.

Then no, that one is Gray Primer as in the grey color used in the primer (no idea which exactly: USA, Germany, UK ...? tanks, airplanes, ships ...? WW2, WW1, NATO...?), to simulate the surface has no final paint yet, just the first coat. Vallejo is changing the name to Basecoat Grey to avoid confusions with the real spray and bottle based primers one should use as first coat over a miniature. OTOH, WSF is so porous that many paints seem to work fine as primer.

For nozzle problems, use the airbrush cleaner, or even just alcohol. And while you can apply Model Air without thinning, there are thinner (71.061/70.524) and retarder (70.597) to help slow down the drying. Reference numbers can vary, there're also bigger bottles with other numbers and they're rearranging the products to eliminate duplicates (mostly the auxiliaries appearing in every series with different numbers) and problematic names.

You can check their lists and FAQ.

Thanks for clarification. I've just gotten into Vallejo paints. I've used the Vallejo cleaner for some time now and it seems to do it's job great, and I've also got retarder which I've been mixing with some paints. So far I've managed to paint with them quite successfully.

You're right about the WSF. It's so porous and rough surfaced, there's no actual need for a primer, as far as I can tell.

Just received my test prints for Parkzone P-51D sized planes, among other smaller things (I'll post pics of those later). And damn they're cute... When they get smaller, they seem to just get better. These are about 20% smaller than the ones I made for the Hyperion series Mustangs. This "PZ size" seems to be around the minimum size that still retains all the details I've made for these. I've done some optimization to strengthen places that could get too thin and that seems to have paid off, as these are real light, yet very solid.

Beautiful models!
I've been experimenting with both Vallejo and Tamiya paints on WSF. But I think I need to add more layers of the base color before painting the other colors as my models are still very rough.
Also, my models are very small (1/144 scale) and this seems to make the roughness more apparent.
Yours looks great! I hope I manage to get that kind of finish on my own models some day.

Best regards,
Luis