The Black Island (DHC Chipmunk T.10)

Dry fit 

Thinning the cowling 

Scratch-building a cockpit 

Seats waiting for their turn  

Cowling vents drilled out 

Cockpit sidewall structure added 

Added seats from an F4U Corsair 

Interior structure complete 

Interior painting and epoxy wheel spats roughed out 

Interior highlights painted 

Interior flooring painted and wheel spats shaped 

Added scratch-built seat cushions/belts 

Seat belts glued in place and buckles painted on. 

Fuselage glued together 

Cockpit interior is visible 

Needs some putty and sanding 

Side view 

Putty and sanding.. and more sanding 

Primer applied... needed more sanding 

Underside need some extra sanding too 

Sanding mostly complete 

Canopy dipped in Future and masked 

Canopy interior painted 

First coat of white paint for the trim 

Another coat of white... now for some masking! 

The white striping is all masked up. Those wheel spats were tricky! 

Well, it's red! Too bad I snapped the wheels off AGAIN in the process. Also, looks like there were some small masking errors on the engine cowling... grumble grumble. 

Masking errors on this side as well. I just couldn't seem to get that curve right! Canopy looks alright though. 

New landing gear... 

I think I suck at masking... 

...yep... I do suck at masking. Sigh. 

Wheels are back on... almost done now. 

During the general updating of my Tintin projects I decided that this one needed a do-over - largely because I got the new AZModel kit. 

The sprues sure do look a little better than that ANCIENT Airfix kit. Can't wait to get started. 

That was a bit harder than I thought it was going to be. The plastic is quite soft, almost like nylon, and it really didn't want to take the cement very well. I made a bit of a mess of it trying to get it to stick together. Anyway, I've hollowed out some room for the DC motor, and Tintin, Snowy and the British Pilot are ready to get on board. 

Thank goodness, everything fits. 

The canopy fit is pretty good, but also a bit hard to get glued in place. Oh, and instead of scratchbuilding the spats again, I decided to design some wheels and 3D print them instead. 

Wheels on... and the slight gap around the canopy is filled with Tamiya Liquid Surface Primer - my new best friend! 

After some careful masking, we're ready for the first coat of white paint. 

A bit more masking and on goes the red paint. 

Not bad. The surface is a bit rougher that I wanted. I'll try to sand it down gently a bit. 

Got the homemade decals in place. I didn't get the Blue Rider ones because it's a simple set of black letters for the registration. The font used is the post-war RAF one. The dimensions look pretty good, but I seem to have got a bit of a water stain when putting the decal on. Hopefully we can even that out with a bit of Future clear coat. Now it's time for a stone wall. 

After checking my reference image, I realized that the stone wall needed to be more organic. So I rolled up a bunch of stones using "Angel Clay" and then glued them all together with white glue. A quick spray with whatever Tamiya grey paint I have handy, some random grey/brown/greens brushed for highlights, and a bit of extra greenery glued on, and we'll be done.