Mod Tech Monday - Gloster Gladiator Painting and Weathering Part 1
The recently released Durafly Gladiator helpfully comes out of the box painted but WITHOUT the decals applied, so is screaming out for a custom scheme and with some basic tools, readily available paints, and a good bit of patience you can quite easily paint and weather the Gladiator to really make it stand out from the crowd.
The base silver gives quite a lot of scope for scale wartime schemes so I opted for the Norwegian scheme as this is an often overlooked theater of WW2 and the Norwegian put up a gallant effort with inferior equipment flying against the mighty Luftwaffe during the 1940 invasion of Norway. Not only does it nicely represent the underdog in this setting, but they are also rather simple but striking markings so suit my schedule for getting the model done and flying asap in the new scheme. Weathering is a straightforward and simple affair also as the silver only really needs a single color to bring out the details (more on that below)
For masking, I used the 'talc technique' and then 'dry brushing' for the basic weathering. Both methods are simple yet effective and provide good results. We can thank Brenden at Just Plane Crazy for pushing the talc trick (link below to his video covering this) and dry brushing was a tip I first read about in an article by the great Ken Shepard in the UK magazine RCM&E MANY years ago. What struck me then is just how simple this method is, using just charcoal power (or in my case Vallejo weathering powder), some Q-tips (earbuds) a foam-edged brush or a piece of card, and a little trial and error you can literally breathe life (you need to blow away some of the excess powder) in a model, and on the Gladiator especially with all those nicely molded-in panel lines, rib effects and hatches.
I breakdown and detail both the painting and weathering process fully in the part 1 video below and look out for part 2 coming soon where I reveal the finished model and of course put her in her element up in the sky.
Stay tuned!
Get the Durafly (PNF) Gloster Gladiator Mk1 Biplane Fighter EPO 1100mm (43")
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