Dassault Mystère IV.A

[McCoy]

A quick n' fun Matchbox build. No troubles at all along the way n' the camouflage is airbrushed freehand without maskin' other than the sharp border between the belly n' the top. Tamiya XF colours was used.

Started on July 9, 2010, finished on September 9, 2010.

[Whiterook]

Yet another beautiful build, mate… thanks for sharing these Matchbox beauties! Would you say the parts list are rather small in number? …I’m thinking based on the sprue pics, this makes them a nice easy-level kit.

Again, love the seat belts… the buckles really stood out for me… how did you make them?

Lastly, can you describe the reasoning for the blackish shading? …for the interior of the nose, I am assuming to help deflect the eye from viewing through the cockpit and creating a shadow to mask the inside plastic; but I couldn’t quite figure out why you did the nose exterior.

I don’t know if you can cull something together from pics in your library but, I’ve never understood the whole panel shading thing…when you airbrush dark paint into the different panel seams, and then later spray the topcoat layer(s)…how that is all done and why. I would love to see your method in the Model Builders’ Paing & Display Shop to help explain it.

[McCoy]

Thanks mate! Yes, the kits is quite simple. Once again, the belt buckles is just flattened lead wire. The black paint is for hiding the fact that there isn't much on the inside. The inside of the air intake is black in order to create depth as the intake depth is only about 5mm. The black paint on the exterior is just left over paint.

As for the preshading of panel lines I can say that it's a technique that I've moved away from but you do it by slowly building up the top coat in thin layers until the effect of shadows is almost too subtle. Most of the time it doesn't even show up on photos if you've done it right. Most examples of the technique you see is way too heavy so that it doesn't look right. You really don't see the panel lines on a real plane. I think it's better that I do a dedicated "How To" on Black Basing instead in the future as that's the technique that I use nowadays. But I don't have anything ready for that at the moment. I need to do some work on a paint mule for that and I'm not in shape for building/painting at the moment as my neck is "out of order" and needs fixing by a pro bone knacker.

[Whiterook]

Sounds good on the Black Basing… whenever you’re doing well, no rush, but I’ll be interested to learn! And yeah, kinda what I anticipated on the black interior coats… makes sense for presentation and viewing.