Boulton Paul Defiant Mk.I Airfix 1/72


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Introduction

 Airfix's new tool Defiant is excellent kit. Most of all, its outline shape is good. I only added a few minor brush up works to make a more sharp and accurate model. In parallel, I made original five view drawings based on the official manuals and actual aircraft photos. In addition, I'd try to instruct how to make an Inkscape profile illustration.


Side and top view drawings

  • The side view shape was a trace of photo. I couldn't use any good conditioned photo which is distant, right beside and sharp. So I used distant and fuzzy photo for the whole shape, and sharp and near photo for details.

  • The total length was described as 35ft3.9in (Mk.I) and 35ft10.3in (Mk.II) in "Mushroom Yellow Series Boulton Paul Defiant". And also, Mk.II total length was written in official manuals. Unfortunately, there is no station diagram.

  • The planar shapes of the wing and stab were confirmed with a photo in the Crowood's book. As for planar shape of the fuselage, the max width is located at the gun turret. The width of the Merlin engine and its exhaust were the considerable significant points.

  • The length of the fuselage and the position of the turret center were written in the Mk.II manual. And there is a fuselage frame figure in this manual.

  • The wing span, chord, stab span and code were written in this manual. There are frame figures of the main wing, tail fin and stab in the manual as well.

  • The incidence is 1.25°, the dihedral is 1°8" (inner wing) and 5°20" (outer wing). The wing thickness ratio were unknown. I assumed 16% (constant in the inner wing) 10% (tip) from an analysis of photos.

  • The airfoil is NACA M-6 mod according to the web site "The Incomplete Guide to Airfoil Usage". I couldn't know the meaning of "mod", NACA M-6 was similar to Clark Y.

  • Panel and rivet lines, number of fasteners on the fuselage side, upper wing and upper stab were almost defined from walkaround photos. On the other hand, underside was invisible.

  • The Mushroom book describes that the area of Mk.II rudder was increased, But I couldn't confirmed with photos.

  • The retractable fairing rearward the turret might be fabric covered. Only the base of navigation light and square panel were metal.



Front, bottom view and cross section drawings


  • The fuselage cross section shapes were traces of manuals and/or photos of actual aircraft.

  • The max width of the fuselage is 43.5" from the official manual. The cross section "B" of my drawings is a trace of front view photo.

  • The width of the firewall (cross section C) was decided from the width of exhaust stack. This width was accurately estimated from Spitfire Mk.I's exhaust.



Note the distance of the rear exhaust and cowl.
The left is Spitfire Mk.I. The right is Defiant. They are the same scales.

C is the axis of the turret. BC is larger than AC, so the width A is wider than B.
The black line is a actual aircraft. The red line is Airfix kit.



Modeling



The kit lower wing which I bought was distorted. I bent it with my hands and plastic sheet was glued for reinforcement.
The cockpit was straight from the box. The surface was peeled off with sandpaper to sharpen kit panel lines.

Canopy frames of the kit clear parts were sanded off.
Canopy frames were engraved with handmade double needles (0.3mm (.01") wide).


Because of sanded frames, the canopy height became a little low. 0.4mm (.015") clear plastic sheet was glued on the lower edge. The rear retractable canopy was cut off with etching saw. It wasn't adjusted the height. As the result of that, the gap between the slide hood and retractable canopy was depicted.


Panel and rivet lines

 Rivet lines were engraved with a needle. Handmade double needles were used for some double rivet lines.



There are nine stringers between the front and rear spar of the main wing. But they are too many for the 1/72 model. I reduced them to seven. Well, I was a convinced criminal.
These templates were cut by home use cutting machine.

In this photo angle, Defiant looks unexpectedly beautiful and grace. The reason may be her long rear fuselage.



Details



The kit max width was rearward the turret (red arrow).
The fuselage side rearward the turret was sanded.

The landing light was replaced with heat formed clear plastic sheet and punched out aluminum sheet.
The escape hatch was removed rearward. The dark line is kit original.

The instrument panel was kit decals. Rods of extended sprue were added on.
Gun barrels were router lathed brass rods.

The pilot seat was from kit. The harness was Fine Molds' Nano Aviation Series.
The canopy and turret were almost finished. Clear parts were polished with rubbing compound.

Canopy windows were masked with scotch tape. Yellow masking tape was a masking for inside. Canopy parts were temporally fixed with wood glue.
Mr. Surfacer was thinly sprayed to find blemishes. Fasteners of the cowl were engraved with beading tool.

The spinner was enlarged with 0.3mm (.01") plastic sheet.
Rib tapes of aileron and elevator were depicted with dry decals.



Painting

 I selected PS-H/L7021 of Plt Off D. Whitley, No 264 Sqn, Hornchurch, August 1940. The yellow ring of the roundel was wider than other aircraft. The fuselage roundel was 40" type A and approx 3.5" width yellow ring. The upper roundel was 56". There might be no roundel on the lower wing. The camouflage scheme was B.

Recent research revealed there were many variations of Sky shade in this period. No 264 Sqn Defiants might had been painted Black and White undersurface and repainted with "Sky". So there is a possibility that the shade of this paint was not proper Sky. But I didn't know the correct fact. Of course, I painted in Sky.








First, Dark Earth was sprayed. Then it was masked with Bru Tack.
Dark Earth was Mr. Color #22 and 30% of Yellow.

The thickness of dry decals matches delicate depiction.



Inkscape illustration

 I'd present my Inkscape illustration method. Of course, this is not only method. If you take interest in Inkscape, please refer tutorial web sites.


Basic window

 There are commonly used tools. Sorry, this is Japanese. So translations might not match to original. Anyway, icons may be the same.

Page set up, Import of a pic

 The first step is Page set up. I always make drawings in 1/48 scales. It is set up in A4 size using "File" => "Set Up Document".

Next step is Import. In this tutorial, I import my illustration as a picture and trace it. Well, this is an odd setting. Click "File" => "Import" => pick up a picture. The picture is put on the "Layer 1". If you click "Eye icon", this layer is hided (non-display).

Zoom in/out of the picture

 The imported picture is larget than proper 1/48 size. So the picture has to be zoomed out. Click "(1) Pointing tool" and click the picture, "Object" => "Mutation" => "Zoom in/out".

Set up drawing layer

 Click "(17) Layer" icon , then the layer window opens. Click "+" icon and set up a new "side" layer for drawings.

Input an outline

 Click "(5) Pen tool" icon. Click a starting point (L.E. of the spinner) of the outline, then click next point and so on. If you finally click starting point (small box), the outline become a polygon object. Note that in this tutorial, the picture layer is 50% opacity.

Next step is Edit of the object. If you drag a middle point of a line with "(2) Node tool", the straight line becomes curved line. The object shape is adjusted with drag of a handle from each node. If you drag the node, the node is removed.

Finally, following drawing was made. Note the position of each node and sharp node (rhombic) and smooth node (square). Number of nodes would be better off reduceing as small as possible.

A canopy window is made with "(3) rectangle tool".

When the drawings of outline and panel lines, set up new layers and draw rivets line and fasteners. Dot-line is drawn with "(15) Edit Object".




Markings



The under surface was Sky. Then Flat Clear was oversprayed.
First step was masking for White portions including basecoats.

White was sprayed on the fuselage roundel and fin flash. Then Yellow was sprayed.
Yellow and White were masked and Blue was sprayed.

Dull Red was painted on the wing roundel and fin flash. The fuselage roundel would be decals.
The code letter was masked with machine cut sheet. This is positioning.

Then cutting sheet was pasted.
Code letter and decal were finished.



Inkscape illustration part 2

 The second tutorial is Painting.


Camouflage paint

 Set up a new layer of painting. Draw objects and paint them. Airbrushing effect is set in "(15) Fill/Stroke Edit window". Color tone is also edited in this window.

Markings

 The roundel is drawn with "(4) Circular Arc tool". Adjust its size with "Object" => "Mutation".

The code letter is drawn with "(3) Rectangle tool". Order their position with "(18) Order/Position window".

Details are painted. Each object is made with "Copy" => "Paste in the same location" of the drawing layer. Then this Painting and Marking layer is put on the bottom of layers.

Masking

 The camouflage paint objects run off the edge of fuselage drawings. So the Masking layer is newly set up and hides them. Cut off Red object from the Yellow rectangle with "Path" => "Difference". Then repaint the new object in White. This Masking layer put on the Paint and Marking layer and under the drawings, rivets and fasteners layers.

The result of above works is the following pic.

Next tutorial is 3D Gradation.



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