103rd Aero - Decals

Before adding decals - notice the muted roundel and rudder colors

Before Shapeways' recent demise, many of us in the Wright Flight were buying printed color aircraft from Reduced Aircraft Factory. These planes were filling in many gaps in our respective collections, but the colors, due to their very printed nature, were extremely muted or even slightly off. This was particularly noticeable in the primary color ranges, where blues, reds, and other solid colors simply do not come out as vivid as in real life. Usually the details for squadron markings and lozenge patterns were excellent, but the Sioux Indian heads on these 103rd Aero Squadron SPAD VIIs got lost in the mix. To rectify that somewhat I bought decals from Miscellaneous Miniatures to add to the planes, giving them a bit of a "pop." While the Indian heads on the decals are the early Lafayette Escadrille Seminole version, the decals came out looking rather good.

After, but before adding decal softener

Escadrille Americaine - Thaw's Nieuport 16

Before adding roundels

I am not 100% pleased with this one, but for a gaming piece it is decent. I took an Ares Nieuport 16, ripped off the top wing, removed the struts, tried to cut the rockets off, then reversed the struts so that the residue from the rockets that I could not remove would be less noticeable. I then painted it a nice AK Interactive Clear Doped Linen (version 2), gave it a little touch up, and applied Miscellaneous Miniatures decals (the bottom still retains its historical French markings). Thaw's N.16 is done.

The smoothness of the paint job does not match the Chapman N.11 I completed last year, and one can see some issues around the struts on the lower wings, but in the flesh it is not so bad. 

The finished product

There were two linen colored Nieuports in the Escadrille Americaine - Chapman's with confirmed American looking roundels on the top wing, and Thaw's speculated to be the same. Having these on the board against the normal green and brown Nieuports is a nice change of pace.

Looking pretty decent from a distance!

The base is a Rival Sky Games offering (I just received several bases - cost and shipping were very reasonable from Australia to the United States), while the mat is a new GripMats from Etsy (Break From Reality Games). Super happy with both of these products!

Kościuszko Squadron - The Decals (and Planes) Are Complete!

It seems to take me a bit of time to complete hobby projects - probably why I like to either buy painted planes, or have others paint for me. It is not that I am lazy in this aspect - time gets in the way and at times frustration with a quality looking finished project prevent me from doing more. However, in this case, while these two planes took me months to finally complete (and they aren't...still need to varnish them), at least I can say I am mostly happy with how they turned out.

Some things that still bother me - the Polish insignia on the top wings should be larger, the numbers should not have white outlines, a few of the decals are slightly crooked, and the squadron markings do not stand out. The painting is decent, but not superb (the fuselage color needs to be a tad lighter I think). Some of these issues are what they are - based on what I could find for decals, I used what I could source. As for painting, I could keep fiddling with this or that, and still not be 100% satisfied. The crooked decals are not really that noticeable, and as far as the tree feet distance rule...they look good. So, DONE (well, other than the varnish).

This is what I was shooting for:

And this is what I came up with:

Planes - Table Top Flights

Decals - I-94 (national insignia), Miscellaneous Miniatures (numbers and squadron markings)