DFS-230 Assault Gliders

Seeing as how these 10 assault gliders will the main attraction when I display my army prior to deployment, its only fair they get a post on how i painted them up. First off, these gliders are really nice models. Details are crisp, very easy to build up. 

Excuse some of the low/dark pictures...used my handphone again when the camera was unavailable.

Not showing it here but i first primed the model with Vallejo grey primer, airbrushed directly from the bottle. Then airbrushed the underwing and fuselage with vallejo model color 907 pale grey blue.

Once dry, i start with masking these area off. You'll notice :

1/ i'm using normal masking tape which you can buy at any arts shop. The cheap stuff basically. Just make sure to stick it a couple of times to a slighty dusty surface to lessen the stickiness. In my hobby room, dust is aplenty :)

2/ i didn't assemble the wing struts to the wings and fuselage. This is so it'll be easier to mask the fuselage and underwing area.

Then 2 layers of vallejo 890 reflective green. For camo schemes i've always sprayed on the lightest color first followed by progressively darker ones. This will ensure that light colors remain light and don't end up looking a bit darker.

Now comes the fun/tedious part. Masking the camo. Tedious but its gotta be done to get that effect. This is how i do mine.

Same cheap masking tape. Stick some to the cutting mat and draw shapes on it. The gliders camo scheme are geometric straight lines so i just used my imagination and drew some. Might not be historically correct but it's not my objective. Its for gaming after all.

Apply the mask and make sure you end up getting a 50/50 ratio of light green and dark green. Again i just used my imagination on where best to apply a certain shape...nothing fancy.

Then the last color to be sprayed on, 979 german camo dark green.

Now comes the fun part of peeling off the mask and seeing the result. Again, sorry for the dark picture.

Presto!! Camoed gliders :) Now i fix the wing struts and paint them pale grey blue. 

From here i proceeded with the decals and they're done. Apart from the first glider, i didn't do any line washing or weathering. Too much time which i don't have. Maybe when the whole army is done i'll get to that. But for now......and then there were 7!!

Looking good so far. Just another 3 gliders to go :)

For those interested to know how i store my gliders, a simple solution that i've used when transporting aircraft models to painting competitions.

I cut the foams that you get in most FoW blisters or boxes. Cut a line/hole to fit into the wing tip and put double sided tape on the bottom. Another foam i leave uncut but also apply the double sided tape. Fix the foams to a box and you'll end with something like this.

All nice and snuggle and ready for battle!! As you can see, there's only room for 6 gliders in this box so i'll have 2 for the company.

Cheers all. Hope you had a good weekend.