Revell HMCS Snowberry Flower Class Corvette
This is the fifth part of the Revell HMCS Snowberry Flower Class Corvette 1/144 Scale RVG 05132
In this next stage, I’m going to go through the process of chipping the paint. For this I’m going to use a product that I’ve featured a few times now in my builds, Mr. Masking Sol Neo. I also want to mention here that this method was demonstrated to me by an amazing master modeler in the UK Andy Moore, who sadly isn’t making models anymore.
My work here won’t be as complicated or as involved as Andy’s, but I really like using Masking Sol Neo as it creates very realistic chipping that looks just a bit more realistic than painting on the chipping. Painting chipping is a great method and one that I still use, but I think the results are more realistic this way.
The first question I asked Andy was “Do you use Masking Sol R, or Masking Sol Neo”? I had no idea what the differences were with these masking agents, and Andy explained that the Masking Sol R dried very flat and level, and was very good for canopies and parts that weren’t going to get a lot of paint on them. Masking Sol Neo dried higher so that you can still see it after you’ve painted over it, this makes it a lot easier to remove once painting is completed.
Here are the tools I’m using for the chipping. I’ve got a large piece of sea sponge that I found at a pharmacy section. I can cut this into little bits. Tamiya Decal Scissors so that I can cut the sea sponge into smaller sections. Mr. Hobby, Mr. Paint Tray. I flip these paint trays around and I can add a small drop of the Masking Sol Neo to use, and I can easily move the Masking Sol Neo around my desk if needed. And lastly, some self-closing tweezers to hold the small bits of sponge.
Before I began adding the Masking Sol Neo to the hull I realized I needed to mark off the hull line. I’m glad that I remembered to do this as it would be more difficult to do afterwards.
The hull line was difficult to figure out as the hull curves upwards at both ends. I cut small squares of Tamiya 1.0 mm tape to use as a reference. These would stay on the model until I was ready to paint the light grey
Following along with the paint guild I marked the middle of the hull line. Then I took a long strip of masking tape and stretched it from the middle to the front of the ship where the red hull section would begin. Keeping the tape tight I placed more of the 1.0 mm squares along the hull to keep as a reference for later on.
This process worked really well and actually went a lot faster than I had expected.
The nice thing with Masking Sol Neo is that it dries very quickly as a result this allows you to work quickly. This is also its downside as you are going to use a lot of drops of this stuff and go through quite a few bits of sponge in the process which can seem to slow things down a bit.
That being said it provides an excellent result and some sharp edges. In the past, I’ve used a small paintbrush to paint it on, and that looks good but it’s just not as random as using the sponge. However, with the paintbrush, I’ve felt that I have more control over where the Masking Sol Neo is going to be placed.
Another nice feature of the Masking Sol Neo is that if you don’t like the way it turned out you can easily rub it off of the model and try again.
For the main hull color I sprayed on Mr. Hobby Aqueous Russet (H-33). This was a fairly thin paint and I sprayed this on in 3 light layers. Russet is an excellent Hull color, a nice deeper red, and if I was building a clean ship I’d probably stop here, but I wanted to add a bit more to weather up this red.
I wanted to brighten up some of the hull panels so I applied a very light layer of Tamiya X-17 Pink. This color was a bit more intense than I expected it to be against the Russet, so I mixed some Tamiya XF-7 Flat Red and lightly sprayed it over the top blending all of the colors together.
Now that the red hull was painted it was easily masked up with the help of those squares I added earlier.
Once everything was taped off I removed the squares for painting.
I searched through my light grey Tamiya paints, and I decided for this project my main grey was going to be Tamiya XF-19 Sky Grey. I really like this color and I think it will work well with the rest of the parts.
And now to add even more masking tape, but this time it was to mask off the sections where the camouflage was going to be added. I’m not entirely sure how these funky shapes camouflage the ship, but at the very least they help the ship to look a bit more interesting.
For the Sea Green sections, I decided to use Tamiya XF-76 Grey Green (IJN). This is a very unusual color, it was designed by Tamiya as the exterior color of their then-new 1:32 A6M2b Zero fighter. Personally, I’ve found this to be too dark of a color for Japanese aircraft. But I use it a lot with various parts on modern aircraft and now a Canadian ship.
Based on references from the HMCS Sackville, the Sea Blue was going to be the more unique color of the build. It’s surprisingly a very bright and dominant color. I decided to mix Tamiya XF-23 Light Blue, with X-14 Sky Blue (50-50). I was really delighted when I sprayed on the color that it looked very close to the real thing.
I removed the masking from around the camouflage, and I’m very pleased with how all of these colors look next to each other.
Now I’m this is sadly where I’m going to have to pause the build. I really wanted to continue on further and remove all of the masking, and I really hate to leave this on a sort of cliffhanger, but I was talking to my brother, and he pointed out something important.
My brother and I usually talk about our projects and bounce ideas off each other. He was interested in my chipping method, and how I had masked off the water line when he then asked me what I was going to do with the big lettering K116 that goes near the bow and on the stern. These are decals and my brother pointed out that the hull would be beat up and the lettering from the decals would be really clean compared to the rest of the ship.
He suggested that he would take the decals and create some stencils for me to use. The only downside is that at this moment he doesn’t have the time to design them for me. So I’ll have to leave the post here, and next time I should have some stencils to use.
I think he has a good point, and that with some patience I’ll be rewarded with stencils that will look a lot better than the decals. Hopefully, I won’t have to be too patient, as I’m really excited to see how everything is going to look with all of that chipping!
To be continued…
Jared Demes is a modeler from southern Alberta. He has been building models since he was 4 years old when his Dad first introduced him to the hobby. He has written for several magazines including, Fine Scale Modeler, Scale Aircraft Modeling, Phoenix Scale Models, and others. He has an interest in all modeling subjects, with a focus on WWII Japanese aircraft and Science Fiction.
Jared has won several IPMS awards for his modeling, and currently operates his YouTube channel rebelsatcloudnine, where he showcases model builds and product demonstrations.
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