Armaments in Miniature, Me-109 Work in Progress Part 1

I finally found some time to paint this weekend!  The whole family has been sick in bed so I was presented with a little time to pull out the airbrush booth and paint something new.  A few weeks back I purchased a 3 aircraft flight of Me-109 G's by Armaments in Miniature.  These are 1/100 scale and made from resin; for 15mm wargaming I'd say these are probably the best option around...  They are a little pricey though at $12 to $15 each.

I started by mounting a rare earth magnet on the underside of the fuselage for easy attachment and removal from a flight stand.  One of the great things about this soft resin is is drills easily :)

Many of the flight stand options available from gaming companies don't really fit the bill for what I was looking for...  something simple and cheap.  I crafted these out of a small wooden dowel and disk (looks more like a wooden tire); they turned out ok and for $3 worth of materials from Hobby Lobby I should be able to make a dozen of them.

I'll be coating the base with texture and eventually adding terrain and foliage to give a nice professional look to the stand.  The top of the dowel has a matching rare earth magnet that helps hold the aircraft on.

I used Vallejo's new Acrylic-Polyurethane Grey Primer and applied it using my airbrush.  It went on nice and smooth and had a perfect finish.  I'm quite happy with this new Vallejo product as I don't have to thin it at all; just pour it into the airbrush cup and spray.

I sprayed the fuselage a lightened Vallejo Reflective Green and then added some subtle camouflage patterns using Vallejo Gunship Green.  The underside (while you can't see it here) was sprayed with Vallejo Sky Grey.  Yellow Eastern Front theater markings were applied using Vallejo Flat Yellow.  The paint scheme I chose is loosely patterned after Hannes Trautloft's JG 54 in Northern Russia on the Eastern Front.

To seal the base coat and to prepare for the wash and decals I spraying on a coat of gloss acrylic varnish.  I used Vallejo's gloss varnish and I thinned it with water and airbrush medium; it was a departure from my usual Testor's Glosscote and Dullcote but it was cheaper and non-toxic; time will tell whether I'll like this gloss varnish as a viable option.  I've been looking for an alternative to Testor's spray paints for quite some time.

That's it for now; I'll be sure to post more as I make progress.  Painting aircraft is enjoyable to me; I'm tempted to try and find some 1/72 plastic kits now that I've picked up this plastic craze lately :)

To see the finished project, be sure to checkout Part 2 of this article.