Invasion stripes

[Ian Meadows]

Hi

Probably a daft question but I've never done an aircraft with the D-Day stripes before, and I am starting the Beaufighter TF.X now. Any advice on the invasion stripes? Do you paint the aircraft as normal, mask off then couple of coats of white, then add the stipes or would you when painting leave "a gap" where the stripes go to avoid having to add lots of white to cover the colour?

I've given up on airbrushes for the moment, so I'll be using brushes if that makes any difference?

Also, would the lines have crisp edges? In my head I would think they would have been done quickly at airfields so may not be that crisp but not sure.

Thanks in advance

Ian

[peebeep]

I paint the stripes first then mask off and paint the rest. There's lots of comments about how neat the stripes are on forums and social media, usually with the same one or two photos to prove a point. My own view is that the stripes were probably painted without a great deal of precision, but when I look at efforts to reproduce this on a model it just looks naff, so I use masking. In other cases you'll find photos of stripes that have been painted carefully, so masking is a must. Viewing at a scale distance for 1/48 or smaller I would suggest the stripes will probably look straight. At larger scales you might want to make a value judgement and use references to make a decision.

[SD45elect2000]

I literally just did this. Stripes went on first, then masked and painted the rest of the model.

Randall

[Ratch]

These were brush painted.

‘Mama’s Boy’ KI*O s/n 43-29301 Lt. Edwin E. Wasil 20th Fighter Group, 77th Fighter Squadron, King’s Cliffe, 26th August 1943 – October 1945

[Ian Meadows]

Thank you all - glad I asked as painting them first was not an option I'd considered.

I'll give that a go, thanks again.

Ian

[Nathan -355727]

I remember many years ago, my unit was celebrating our new gate guardian which was a Dakota painted with invasion stripes. One of the veterans said he and many others had been tasked to paint the stripes with a brush and tins of paint at the last minute and with so many “Daks” to paint they had no time for nice straight lines.

[SD45elect2000]

I remember many years ago, my unit was celebrating our new gate guardian which was a Dakota painted with invasion stripes. One of the veterans said he and many others had been tasked to paint the stripes with a brush and tins of paint at the last minute and with so many “Daks” to paint they had no time for nice straight lines.

 

 

I agree and of course you are correct, the tough part is that this rough paint job doesn’t scale very well in smaller scales. In fact the photos I’ve seen unless they are close up photos, the stripes look pretty nice. As stated before , a larger scale can better represent D Day stripes .

 

 

Randall

[Ian Meadows]

Thanks again for the advice - it's not going to win any prizes but I am quite pleased with results so far.

[Ratch]

They look good to me sunglasses

[SD45elect2000]

Yes, I’ll upvote that one.

Randall

[Ian Meadows]

Thanks both - quite pleased with it. Varish and decals this weekend hopefully.