Zvezda Airbus A-321 - 1:144 - WizzAir
A heavy and sturdy box
Nicely packaged sprues
Parts for the flight deck and galley
Flight deck assembled - seats just added for the picture. I decided to use decals for the windows, so I won't paint or add any details
Windows chopped off so that the openings may be filled completely with putty
Flight deck and nose gear bay added - windows being cemented in place to fill the openings in the fuselage sides
Plenty of weights added to the nose - not sure if it is necessary, but I don't want to end up with a tail-sitting Airbus
Fuselage dry fit with tape - when cementing, I worked my way inch by inch from the front to back to make sure everything is lined up perfectly
The windows are filled with Tamiya White Putty
Notice the strange, "pebbly" surface of some parts of the fuselage - this actually seems to be a molding error. I will need to carefully buff everything, or the glossy paint will accentuate the roughness into an "orange peel" coat.
After a day, everything is sanded smooth - surfaces, join lines and windows
Lost panel lines are rescribed with a razor saw blade - the existing lines work as guides while scribing
Cleaning out the rescribed panel lines with a wooden cocktail stick
Transparent nose part cemented and sanded in place - I don't care about retaining the clarity as I will be using decals anyway
Main wing sub-assembly cemented together
Wings joined to the fuselage - just a few tiny gaps to fill with liquid sprue (tiny pieces of plastic sprue dissolved in Tamiya Extra Thin cement)
I attach the inner part of the slats - the extended part of the slats will be added later as it is a fragile fit
Resin sharklets removed from their casting blocks
Wingtips removed in preparation for the resin sharklets that will be cemented in place with CA-glue
Sharklets, rudder and stabilizer in place
Flap actuators done
Installing the extended flaps - the slats at the front of the wings will be added after painting, as they are super delicate
Fuselage and wings are nearly done! Starting to look like an Airbus!
Both types of Airbus engines (CFM above and IAE below) are provided - make sure to pick the right ones for the airliner you wish to build!
I will be using the IAE engines as these are the ones used by WizzAir - insides painted with various AK Xtreme Metal metalizers before assembling
Engine nacelles assembled and primed
Surfaces wiped down with IPA alcohol to remove fingerprints before priming
Preparing the spraying session (Panzag portable spray booth)
Primer applied - Ultimate Primer, AKA Badger Stynylrez - possibly the best primer available today
Fade to grey... It takes some time, but finally all primed.
The primer layer is rubbed down with Mr Color grinding cloths for a perfectly smooth finish before the color layer
Wing edges, underside and stabilizer airbrushed with light gray - Tamiya XF-19 Sky Grey mixed with some XF-2 White
Masking off the light gray before adding the mid gray areas to represent the Corogard areas - I found it easiest to follow the panel lines.
Medium gray Corogard areas painted on
Nose area sprayed with gloss white. Tamiya acrylic thinned 50-50 with Mr Color Leveling Thinner, at least 10-12 thin layers, sprayed wet-in-wet
Since I couldn't find the correct magenta paint anywhere (and believe me, I have been trying), I will be using automotive paints from rattle cans. But before I can use these, I will need to "decant" the paint to be usable in an airbrush
Spray a sufficient amount in a plastic cup
Let it sit without a lid for a day for the drive gas to dissipate - occasionally stir carefully
Pour over into a spare glass jar - magenta paint ready to be used!
Oh no! I managed to break off the winglet - so it needs reattaching, resanding and respraying. Clumsy.
White nose and wings being masked off preparing for the magenta
Spraying on the magenta - Badger Crescendo 175 airbrush, medium nozzle, 25 PSI
Not visible on the pictures, but I noticed some orange peel effect on the sides above the wings... I might have to fix that.
Let the paint dry for a day or two before polishing the magenta areas to a high gloss sheen, and then we can proceed with the blue tail section!
Hozzászólások
19 September 2019, 17:03
TreehuggerInteresting how this paint scheme is something that doesn't require decals in white, pink adn blue, I mean one can just airburush on all the three main colors.
19 September 2019, 20:07
Thomas KolbTreehugger, yes, that's the plan. But TBH, I would have preferred decals, as finding that magenta color was an absolute nightmare: none of the existing model paints I could find comes even close. I will be using Motip automotive acrylics decanted from a rattle can - that is the closest match.
19 September 2019, 20:23
Thomas KolbŁukasz, I will, thanks for the tip. I was checking out the WizzAir Airbuses here at Landvetter Airport to try to get the color right, but damit, that is one elusive color, it seems to be shifting with the light... bluish one day and reddish the other... I guess I will just wing it.
20 September 2019, 20:45
Nathan DempseyLooking great so far! I had the same issue trying to find the "ice blue" for an Air Canada livery. It just looks different in every picture or each time I actually saw one at the local airport.
28 September 2019, 23:55
Thomas KolbNathan Dempsey, thanks! Yes, it is always difficult to get colors right, even when you have the official color number or swatches: things look completely different in 1:144 scale... that is why I almost always end up creating my own paint mixes, based on photos and gut feel. What looks right usually is.
29 September 2019, 07:34
Łukasz GlińskiIn case you haven't found these links before:
britmodeller.com/for..-air-pink-any-clues/
modelwork.pl/topic/9..s-320-1144-wizz-air/
The latter is in Polish only, one of them suggests the Helvetic Magenta paint and after all they redirect to a HAD page which is not valid anymore 🙁
29 September 2019, 11:04
Thomas KolbŁukasz, thank you! Yes, I saw the BM article, but the Helvetic Magenta is unfortunately no longer carried by Hannants so it is more or less unobtainable. The Motip paint that I bought is on the other hand pretty close - actually almost perfect, so I will be using that.
29 September 2019, 11:46
Thomas KolbYaay, my Stynylrez primer has arrived in the mail, so I can resume building!
18 October 2019, 14:18
Thomas KolbPriming done, next I will rub down all primed surfaces with a rubbing cloth to get a perfectly smooth surface for the final paint coat. And then I have a ton of things to prepare, such as the engines nacelles, landing gears, antennas and the dropped slats.
20 October 2019, 17:43
Łukasz GlińskiYour pics reminded me I should hoover my spraying booth😉 Nice priming, waiting for the pink of course 🙂
20 October 2019, 17:45
Thomas KolbI finally started to do the painting - I needed to figure out the best sequence with the different color zones to ease the masking - I will be starting with the light gray wing parts, over to the dark gray upper wing surfaces, the white nose, the pink middle section and finally the blue aft section, followed by a myriad of unpainted metallic parts. I will need to force myself to be patient and allow a lot of drying time between the colors to avoid the masking tape to rip into the paint layers... Zen time, I guess.
24 October 2019, 19:23
Thomas KolbThis afternoon I finished the painting of the wings - the medium gray Corogard areas were surprisingly tricky to paint and required an incredible amount of masking - the areas are not just straight triangles but have a lot of tiny angles and corners. On the real aircraft there is a slight metallic sheen to these areas as the paint contains aluminium particles, but after some experiments I found that using solid gray looks far more realistic in 1:144 scale. Mixing in some metallic paint made it look like a toy.
Next step will be to paint the white nose, but it will have to wait until the weekend, because work.
30 October 2019, 15:27
Nathan DempseyLovely work on the wings. What were the two grey colors you used?
30 October 2019, 15:38
Thomas KolbNathan Dempsey & Heikki Väyrynen, thank you! I used my own mix of Tamiya acrylics, mainly Tamiya XF-19 Sky Grey mixed with various amounts of white. I will need to apply high shine gloss later and also a healthy dose of weathering, so I need to keep it a little lighter for now.
31 October 2019, 05:53
Thomas KolbNose sprayed high gloss white - but I also managed to knock off one of the resin sharklets... 🙁 Damit, that's one tricky repair session in store... I decanted the magenta and ultramarine paints from the rattle cans for airbrush use, so tomorrow I will try to find some time to mask off the part for the pink and see how it works out.
2 November 2019, 19:40
Nathan DempseyHopefully you can get the sharklet repaired. The decanted colors look nice 🙂
3 November 2019, 00:50
Thomas KolbThe magenta is done - some fixes will need to be done here and there, but generally it turned out pretty good. Next I have to do the blue tail section, but that will have to wait for a few days as I am not sure about the curing time for this paint.
3 November 2019, 13:28
Thomas KolbHans Robben, yes, I would like to build one of the WizzAir A320's in the previous pink/purple livery too, but unfortunately the BOA decal sheet for that scheme is sold out everywhere (at least here in Europe).
3 November 2019, 16:04
Nathan DempseyI just checked all my shops here in the USA for that decal. Its sold out everywhere here too. Come on BOA! Time to print more!
3 November 2019, 16:13
Thomas KolbA bit of a setback... Upon close investigation under bright light I noticed that the pink paint seems to have gone on with a nasty orange peel effect at some places around the wings. Yeah, unknown paint with new thinner ratio and compressor air pressure requirements, so that was kind of expected. So now I can now either just live with it, try to polish it back, or strip the paint and redo everything.
Yeah, who am I kidding, of course I will redo it.
5 November 2019, 17:30
TreehuggerDid the paint start to flake off or something? I've seen my multi layered gloss coats on top of primer and black on a submarine kit project that in places turned into a crackled pattern because of me not letting each layer dry for long enough time I suspect, but maybe some entirely differenet type of issue.
5 November 2019, 18:00
Thomas KolbI think I found out the reason for the rough paint - it is that strange "pebbly" molded surface of the model that I didn't sand off completely around the wings and at some hard-to-reach places. You can clearly see it on picture 9. The primer and the paint coat gradually amplified this effect and with a super-gloss coat it became very visible. Now I have stripped off the paint down to the bare plastic and carefully buffed all surfaces - so I should be good to go with the repaint. This is becoming the most time-consuming builds in a long time!
8 November 2019, 19:02
Łukasz GlińskiSound familiar, kind of quick-build-curse, which takes 24 months after all😉
8 November 2019, 19:40
Łukasz GlińskiThought you may like this one: A320 WizzAir | Album by milczacy (1:144)
21 February 2020, 18:38
Thomas KolbLukasz, yes, that's a nice one, now I am actually starting to feel the urge to resume this kit again! I just need to practise gloss painting, currently I suck at it.
21 February 2020, 18:59
