Thank you Maglar. The mottle was done free hand in several stages.
1 Finished all upper surfaces in the sand colour (RLM79)
2 Freehand mottle in green (RLM80)
3 Fade mottle with overspray of 2 or 3 lightened shades of green.It gives a bit of variation in shade.
4 Spray another coat of Sand colour selectively between mottles to sort out cock ups and blend edges.
5 Overspray entire surface with very light and highly thinned coat of sand colour to blend camouflage (virtually invisible)
6 After clearcoat,
decals,clearcoat,overspray top of fuselage,horizontal stabiliser and wings (including Balkenkreuz) with very thin light coat of light grey,I used RLM76 blue grey, to dull down
decals and fade upper surfaces. This aircraft sat in the Tunisian sun for weeks on end and the AeroMaster
decals in particular were far too black!
After that it was normal weathering/exhaust etc and a quick coat of silk varnish.
Paints are all Xtracrylix sprayed with Either an Iwata Revolution or an Iwata Eclipse
airbrush.I can spray at pressures as low as 10-12psi when,for example,filling the mottle.I think a good mottle can be achieved freehand,certainly at 1/32 (like this) and 1/48. 1/72 is a bit more problematic,I don't usually work in that scale but on the one occasion I tried it I used a card mask pierced with a selection of little holes.
I once saw some
decals to simulate mottling. To me they were very unconvincing. The mottle patterns were applied in the field early in the war and at the point of production later. In both cases they were applied freehand and only in the latter was there a "painting guide". This means they vary considerably and are rarely neat. The field applied ones in particular feature a lot of overspray which is lucky for we modellers. The mottling was not masked and I can't remember seeing a hard edged version. Some are tighter than others,depending on the spraygun/sprayer.
The commander of I/JG26,Rolf Pringel, was shot down near Dover by a Sterling bomber on 10/7/41. He was flying one of the new Bf109Fs,he had only had it for two days. In the report of his interrogation the British make a list of questions they wanted answers to. Many are technical questions about the aircraft (can the wing be modified to carry more guns?) or tactical (what is the German opinion of our new fighter formations?). In amongst them is the intriguing question,"reasons for use of present varied and weird camouflage schemes?" His answer was less than illuminating. He stated that the camouflage of all German aircraft is officially standard and any variations are to be accounted for by variations in the taste or skill of the painter. The key word is "officially". Many units were using their own unofficial schemes at this time and Pringel certainly knew this.
Mottling.....a subject in itself!
Cheers
Steve
I have the report and follow ups,including a letter from Bader pleading with the RAF to get on with the assesment of the new F and get the information to squadrons quickly,as PDFs.I can't figure out how to post them,they are rather large files.They are in the archives at Kew.Unfortunately,during trials the captured Bf109F crashed killing the test pilot.You can find stuff about the trials here.
http://kurfurst.org/Tactical_trials/109F2_UK/109F2_ES906_AFDU.html
