Some in-progress pics of what has been done lately on the 109's and a painting demonstration.
First the demonstration, the following is how to easily paint the stencil applied mottling seen on many late war 109's with the tall tail and even a few Me 262s.
Here is a good example of the stencil applied mottling on a 109.
For this demonstration I am using an unused Fw 190D-9 tail from the 1/32 scale Revell kit and has been given a base coat of RLM 76.
Next the outline of the mottles were put on with a paint brushand dark green RLM 83.
The same RLM 83 paint was loaded into the airbrush and I started filling in the center of the mottles.
The mottles have been filled in, the red arrows show where I sprayed the paint slightly outside of the lines, I did this to show how easy it is to replicate the effect of the stencil being lifted up slightly and leaving lines that had a slightly soft edge. After looking at some photographs of the 109's with the stencil applied mottle patterns and on some of them the edges were slightly soft edged.
The above technique works perfectly for painting the 109 (and Me 262) tails but would also be ideal for painting WWII RAF camouflage patterns in 1/72 scale... you could easily paint the hard edge patterns or the slightly feathered demarcation lines and by using this painting technique you save a ton of time by avoiding masking and then painting. :dance
Now...to the 109's
The Revell kit is being painted as one of the 109's I spotted in one of my JaPo books and it has a very distinctive painted tail, here are the tail planes after painting and they are pretty much spot on. The odd painting on them might be from re-painting after repairs were done or perhaps they were taken from another 109 to keep it serviceable. The tail planes have not been glued in yet.
Here is the airframe. The tail planes will not be glued on until after the airframe is painted, the fin/rudder will get the late war stencil applied mottle similar to my painting demonstration above.
The other 109's have had their wheel wells painted RLM 02.
And here are the drop tanks after the decals have been put on and the decals have been lightly oversprayed with highly thinned RLM 76.
Matrixone