"Little Bitch - Remember Me? 362FS P-51Bs" Topic

Here are a couple of Armaments in Miniature P-51As that I've converted to P-51Bs. They represent the mounts of Davis Perron (Little Bitch) and Rodney Starkey (Remember Me?) in Mar 44. With any luck these little friends will keep a big friend out of trouble on a CY6! table at Cold Wars in Mar 09. picture picture picture picture picture picture

The conversion: The P-51A had an air take over the nose that needed to come off…and it's off (careful use of a hobby knife and some sanding paper) picture but the P-51B had an air intake under the chin while the -A has no chin picture . To create a chin I first cut a notch in the chin and then added a piece of sheet plastic. After some trimming, sanding, filling, and more sanding I had the shape I wanted. I also added a bit of sheet plastic to the belly scoop to make it a little deeper.

To finish off the mini I used I-94 decals (Stars), Microscale decals (serial numbers – one number at a time, the white stripes, and the unit and AC numbers), some decals out of the scrap box, and some homemade decals for the names.

I used the serial numbers and names found in the references below. I was able to find the AC letter for Starkey's P-51 but was not able to find it for Perron. So, I went through the database and determined which letters it probably wasn't. I selected G4-W as a best guess.

Some references:
link Little Bitch is about half way down the page
link
I also found Osprey's P-51 Aces to be a great help

And as always, I take responsibility for any screw ups on the minis. Kevin

Kevin.

These are… suberbly done models. Your paint jobs are just beautifully done.

How did you seal the decals? That is particularly impressive.

I'm not a fan of painted canopies, but these are a study in how that technique should be done for sure.

I'm not familiar with A&A, what scale is this, 1/144?
--
Tim

Tim, thanks. The AIM models are 1/100 scale. For the decals I followed these steps:
Painted the models & let it dry over night.
Two coats of Future Floor polish with eight hours drying time between each.
Decals applied (using Micro Set and Micro Sol) let dry overnight.
Another coat of Future floor polish.
For these models I airbrushed some Vallejo Model Air Matte clear for the flat finish. Normally I would have used Krylon Crystal Clear aerosol…but I had issues with it and another mini earlier in the day.
After the first coat of matte finish I added the pastel dust for the exhaust soot and then hit the model with another round of matte finish.

The decals on these were a challenge more than they were fun (white stripes, individual numbers to make the serial numbers, making the aircraft names, and getting the red checkers lined up just so).

Kevin

Did you use Future just over the decals on each coat?

Great job BTW!

I don't even begin to appreciate the either the differences or the work to change an A to a B but the paint jobs are just awesome!

Here is a P-51a with the air intake over the nose:

picture

And here is the P-51b:

picture

You canjust make out the air intake under the shark mouth.

Mark Severin
Owner, Scale Creep Miniatures
ScaleCreep.com

nycjadie, I covered most of the model with Future before I applied the decals. After the decals were in place and dry I again covered a good part of the model with the Future. The intent was to not leave any demarcation lines between areas with and without Future and to smooth over the transition line from the decal to the model surface. Once I started applying the matte finish I did not apply any more Future.

Mark, thanks for the reference pics. I thought I'd taken some in progress pics of the conversion but can't seem to find them now. I'm toying with the idea of converting a P-51A to a P-51B with the Malcolm hood canopy like the one in you second reference. I just haven't pictured in my mind the steps to go through to achieve the look.

Here's Armaments In Miniatures page for the 15mm aircraft. Lots of goodies there and more on the way. link

All, thanks for the kind remarks. Kevin

Lookin' Good, Kev – Just wanna shrink them to 1/144….

:-)

Kimball

Thanks, man. Looks good.

Beautiful work, miscmini.