287 Squadron Takes To The Air

You can blame Dave Manley for this, he sent me a picture of his WIP AEG G.IV German bomber and I knew I had to find something to shoot it down!

Seriously, I am somewhat behind on getting the models ready for AirWar: 1918 2nd edition and whilst waiting for some more barbarians basing to dry I picked up one of the infamous Skytrex Se5a's I made up in March and started slapping some paint on it. A few hours later...

Working up from a white undercoat, I decided as the models are supposed to be compatible with the pre-painted Wings of War models, that I was not going to do any shading or weathering but try and go for a smooth neat look similar to the pre-paints. I did weaken and put some black lining in around the flaps and engine area where there was obvious detail and painted the exhausts grey over a black base leaving a black outline. The basic paint scheme is GW Catachan Green for PC10 and Bleached Bone for the doped linen, both of which look pretty good after a couple of coats.

Decals wise the roundels came from Dom's Decals and the letters are from Fox Transfers (pack FRH4009 - really useful these). The markings are fictional (hence them now being 287 Squadron from Biggles) and the letters should also be on the sides but I had enough trouble with the roundels...

Overall I'm quite pleased with the end result, at times during painting they looked bloody awful and I was tempted to give up (stopped only by the amount of white metal WWI planes I have bought...). I've started painting the Sopwith Dolphins as the models looked a bit rough and I'm keen to see how these turn out, then it's back to the ONESS Germans for Iron Cow now the bits and pieces I have been waiting for have turned up (and maybe some more barbarians as Nick Whittock kindly sent me some unused models he had which means that I now have enough foot for a brigade and each brigade will now have a standard bearer).