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Canadair CT-114 Tutor "Snowbird" (1/72 scale)

Started by Oceaneer99, September 08, 2008, 07:40:37 AM

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Oceaneer99

Here is a profile-scale model I made of a Canadair CT-114 Tutor painted as a member of the CAF Snowbirds precision aerobatic team. I chose this subject in tribute to all the wonderful Canadian model builders I keep in touch with.

I cut the parts from thin plywood, then glued them together and filled the grain. After coats of primer and then white paint, I was left with a blank canvas of an airplane. This was back in January 2008.

I finally decided that rather than try to paint all the color stripes and then glue on small pieces of paper with the roundels, flags, and logos ("paper decals"), I'd cheat a bit and use really large paper decals.

I printed the covering in 12 sections and carefully pasted them on. Then I mixed paint to match the colors as best I could and painted the edges of the plywood to match. This gives a "wrap-around" appearance and really helps make the model look realistic.

Total time was 6 hours, including computer time drawing the decals.


http://smm.solidmodelmemories.net/Gallery/displayimage.php?pos=-1737

You can see here that the white diamonds on the bottom line up if you look from the right angle:

http://smm.solidmodelmemories.net/Gallery/displayimage.php?pos=-1738



Kenny Horne

Hey Garet,

Love the Snowbird!  The paper seems to settle nicely to the profile surfaces.  A great solution to complex schemes, though I'll have to learn quite a bit more of computer graphics to be able to match your results.  Keep up the great work!

Kenny

Oceaneer99

Thanks, Kenny! I should probably make up a profile-scale tutorial.  You tackled several issues with making them, such as how to handle low-wing airplanes.  I know Lou made a fighter jet.  Did anyone else make a simple scale/profile scale model during the cook-up?

The paper for the upper side of the fuselage actually wraps out across the wing.  You can see the edge in the red region if you look closely.  I did it that way so that the roundel and the "Snowbirds" logo could wrap over to the wing.

Believe it or not, the computer graphics part was fairly simple.  I had a folder of Canadian logos and insignia, as well as the three-view with Snowbirds colors, which I had scaled to 1/72 for cutting out the parts.  I used Gimp, which is a free paint program somewhat like Photoshop.  It takes some learning and getting used to, but it works fairly well.  Like the later versions of Photoshop (after 3 or so), Gimp has multiple painting layers that you can show or hide. 

I put the three-view in the lower layer, then plopped a roundel in another layer.  I scaled it to match, then moved it into the right position. For the control surfaces, I traced the three-view parts, extending the lines off the wings so that I could trim them after the paper was glued on.  I made another layer with the color parts, which also ran over the edges of the wings, fuselage, etc., so that I could trim them later and not have any white edges where the paper didn't exactly match the wood.  When all the layers were ready, I hid the ones I wasn't using and put a plain white layer in the background.  Then, I made a copy of the image as a single-layer Tiff file, which I printed to an inkjet printer onto paper.

I trimmed the paper to allow for the thickness of the plywood, then carefully coated the back with glue from a gluestick. After I stuck each piece down, I used an old plastic gift card to smooth out the paper and make sure it was stuck down.  After the glue and paper was completely dry, I trimmed with an X-acto knife.  If you don't wait long enough, the paper tends to tear instead of cut.

I did mess up one wing, and tried to tear the paper off.  It left a residue of paper all over, but I was able to use a wet paper towel to re-wet the glue, and the whole thing came off.  I was careful not to get water on the other paper decal pieces.  I did spray the finished plane with lacquer to seal the ink.

Garet

lastvautour

Very nice work Garet. The artwork is awesome to say the least. Congratulation on an excellent Snowbird.

Lou