Matchbox Me-110 Shelf Queen

[cobraleader]

G'Day All,

Time to dust off a few shelf queens and get them completed.

Here is an old Matchbox Me-110 kit.



The original kit decals are not able to be used - broken, yellowed, too thick. So I found some other marking that appealed and went with it.



I'm painting the model as Blue 235 - a night fighter.

Its been slowly worked on over the past few months, but no photo's of what I've been doing, so here it is a few weeks ago



The top color scheme is RLM 70/71 splinter and the lower is meant to be RLM 02, however I felt the color was a bit stark, so I started with a dark gray and added some black to it.

Couldn't find any decent markings in my Local Hobby shop or in the decal stash I have, so this is going to be custom decals or masked painted markings.

I'll summarise what I've done - fuselage and wing markings are masked with tamiya tape and airbrushed X-1 and X-2 Tamiya paint (Black and White).
I've overcoated the model in Pledge OneGo.

And here are a few pics of the progress

 

[letsgobrowns82]

Nice work!

 

[cobraleader]

Well, I think I'm close to having an intervention called .....

Anyway, on to the task at hand, found a copy of the decals on the internet, scaled them to size, printed the numbers on paper, made a mask with tamiya tape and painted on gunze H323 Light Blue.

Cleaned up the paint that leaked under the masks and then gloss coated with Pledge OneGo.
Currently it is now sitting under cover waiting for the gloss coat dry

 

[Chiefpettyofficer]

Ah, I like the old Matchbox ones. Have two of them for myself Good work on her.

What kind of markings you have used? Hungarian?

 

[JMac]

Nicely done. The painted stencil work looks great.

 

[cobraleader]

I think the markings belong to an Italian Aircraft ...

235 Squadrigilia

from what i've been told, some Italian Me-110's kept the german wing markings ...

 

[cobraleader]

G'Day All,

Well, this shelf queen is no longer queen. She is now completed.

but before I post up the completed pictures, here's what I've done since the last posting ....

After the gloss coat dried, I applied a dot filter with oil paints (white, blue and flesh - didn't have any red). Removed most of it with a thinner moistened old brush. In some parts it all mixed together and created a lighter blue, so had to use some heavy brushing to remove it...











Next was a flat clear coat applied. Washed the entire model with a brown sludge wash made from acrylic paint, detergent, water and pastel chalk.
Waited for it to dry and removed it with cotton buds and tissues.
Added exhaust staining using Tamiya weathering sets, paint chipping with a silver pencil (this was applied using a dotting method, bit noisy and the family complained as I was doing it while watching TV)
Canopy masks were removed and any round of sludge wash was applied and removed from most of the clear parts, but left enough to look like dust had collected around the edges of the glass.
Tamiya weathering set was watered down and applied to the wheels and quickly removed.

Over all, looks okay now.

 

[cobraleader]

Matchbox Me-110 Shelf Queen [Completed]

and now pictures of the completed model

 

[Myke]

9,000,000,000 % improvement!

Great finish!

 

[Chiefpettyofficer]

She´s now a display-queen. Well done. I like the idea for italian markings.

 

[Glorfindel]

Oh' man that looks great! Are those stencils you used for the registry numbers or did you actually cut those out of masking tape? If you cut those from tape then I need to start drinking again.

 

[letsgobrowns82]

Great job, looks nice and dirty like the real thing.