Review sample sent
in by Motor
Books International
This new book from Osprey
Publishing
is
written by well known modeller and webmaster of
Hyperscale....Brett
Green with assistance from Robert Oehler.
Brett Green
is well known for his deep interest and knowledge base about Luftwaffe
aircraft during WW2. Considering Brett's high level of modelling
and Osprey's reputation for producing high quality books, I was more
than a bit curious to crack open his latest book to see if it lived up
to his reputation. I was not disappointed.
With this
book Brett walks you through the process of building a Bf 110.
This book is 82 pages of detail and information and many, many
pictures..... 193 colour pictures to be exact. Chapter 1 begins with
some history about the Bf 110......it's short comings and how it finally
found a role it could perform well. This plane was a failure
against single engined RAF fighters during the Battle of Britain.
But the Bf 110 had great success in other theatres of operations from
the Eastern Front to North Africa.
Brett also goes into some
detail with text and tables and a Black and white line drawing about the
many different variants of the Bf 110 that served in many roles during the
war.
In chapter 2, the book shifts to
it's main focus....model building.....the fun begins. Brett starts off
going over the 7 different Bf 10 kits available in 1/48. Most are
reboxings or variants of another kit and Brett talks about each one.
In
chapter 3, Brett pulls out the Fujimi Bf 110C/D/E and builds it.....in
carefully photo rich step by step detail. Brett chose to build this
one more or less out-of-the-box as an in-flight display model. By
doing so Brett avoided the 2 main problem areas of this kit.....the poor
cockpit and landing gear detail. Watching Brett build this kit step
by step gives the modeller a chance to sort out some good basic building
techniques to achieve a very fine
finished model. I like to think of this model as Brett just warming
up for the next phase of this book.
Brett did use a True Details
instrument panel and some Tamiya figures for his spares box to help detail
the sparse cockpit as well as a "wash" to add shadows in the
cockpit. Brett built this one with the huge 9001 drop tanks under
each wing. Every modeller has struggled with canopy painting and
Brett went with Fast Frames by True details to mask the canopy on his
Fujimi Bf 110. The panel lines were darkened with a pencil, a
wash and some airbrushing. Brass wire was used for a lower
antenna. Although the model appears nicely weathered (exhaust stains
etc), Brett does not mention the techniques he used.
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Brett then moves on to
build the same kit but with a night
fighter paint scheme and a resin True Details cockpit. Brett
explains some very helpful techniques to achieve cockpit shadows to help accentuate
the raise detail of the resin parts. Resin flaps and scratch built
slats were used to help add detail to the otherwise plain looking kit
wings. Certain Eduard PE details parts were used in the cockpit to
add detail to specific areas, such as the instrument panel. Brett
went with post shading and airbrushed panel lines to finish off the
details on this black Bf 110 night fighter. A Vac-u-formed canopy
was used as well wire to detail the landing gear. Paint chipping the
the high traffic areas of the wings were also add. At each step
Brett goes into concise detail about the different techniques he used to
get the beautiful results. Although I have not scanned a photo of
his black night fighter.....trust me....it's a beauty. |
The next model
is a ProModeler Bf 110G-4 built by Chris Wauchop. Chris has built
his Bf 110 more or less out-of-the-box and displays what can be done using
various techniques to achieve a stunningly painted and weathered
out-of-the-box model. Chris goes into detail with pictures and text
about the many simple but quite effective techniques he employed to build
his Bf 110. By following Chris's way of doing things you will
achieve some very impressive results. Chris talks about detail
painting the ccokpit with hand brushing, airbrushing and washes. The
photos in this book of Chris's cockpit show that he is the guy to listen
to......his instrument panels are perfect. Chris used post-shading
to detail his panel lines. the result looks very much like
pre-shading and Chris spend the necessary time with text and photos to
explain each of his techniques. His finished model is stunning.....
especially considering it built out-of-the-box. |
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Well,
now that you're all warmed up and feeling like you can build a Bf 110,
Brett starts into his final article of the book. This is where Brett
lets out all the stops and goes for broke. This is the ProModeler Bf
110G4 with the addition of the following aftermarket items.... |
- Cutting Edge engine
nacelles set to correct kit parts
- Aires resin cockpit
detail set
- Cutting Edge nose radar
set
- Black Magic masks for
masking canopy
- Cutting Edge exhausts
- Cutting Edge resin
control surfaces
Brett then went to work
cutting up this kit to fit all the resin goodies. The cockpit was a
sight to behold.....fantastic and subtle painting and shading to give it
the look of the real aircraft.
Wings and fuselage had
their panel lines pre-shaded. Brett finished off this masterpiece
with weathering that he talks about to further explain to the reader what
is involved. |
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The second to last section of
this book talks about making a diorama base for your Bf 110. In this case
Brett makes a base that includes a specially built ramp to raise up the tail of
the Bf 110 to permit gun testing on the ground. This is called a
"compass platform" and Brett used a resin one made by Verlinden.
Brett covers all the basic steps to paint and detail and weather a diorama
base. This books features a nice selection of how-to photos of the process
to make the diorama base for Brett's Bf 110. Brett also talks about
painting figures as well.
The final section is a gallery of
three different Bf 110 models.
So what's the final word on this
book? I'm quite impressed. There is a wealth of information for
anyone from beginner to expert to use if they are building a Bf 110. The
book also includes many techniques that would help to build any model, but the
focus of this book is the Bf 110. I give this book 2 thumbs up for it's
approach to helping you build a better Bf 110 by using lots and lots of photos
and I look forward to future editions to this series. This book would be a
fantastic addition to any modellers library.
Steve
Special thanks to Motor
Books International for the review copy.
This book is published by Osprey
Publishing and distributed by MBI Publishing Company in the US. It is
available in bookstores everywhere, through Classic
Motorbooks. To buy this book.....visit
motorbooks.com
or call (800) 826-6600.
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