The idea was to try and complete the model with an almost flawless finish, focusing on initial precision rather than any additional layers.
8th December 2025
Another day punctuated by Liz’s ongoing battle with flu. This has certainly been a debilitating dose, her default setting over the last few days to be in bed, sleeping on and off and then trying to take in some fluids and food when the mood infrequently takes her. It’s not been great to be honest, seeing her so unwell. In fact, I can’t remember the last time she spent so long in bed, if at all. Thankfully and I say this with no glee whatsoever, I’ve not caught it, only suffering some mild symptoms that seem to have lingered for a few weeks. It’s small mercies, I appreciate, I just want her to be past it and back on her feet.
In other news, I’ve now completed the Retro Build of my Tamiya Messerschmitt 109G-6, testing my new Gaahleri Mobius airbrush and SMS paints along the way.
Two weeks ago I asked if a model needed to be weathered to be interesting, an update discussing it further being found here:
As part of that, I decided to turn the clock back to the early 80s, before weathering became a staple of our hobby, to build and paint a kit without any additional surface effects, just as authors would have done in magazines such as Airfix Magazine, Scale Models and Scale Aircraft Modelling. The idea was to try and complete the model with an almost flawless finish, focusing on initial precision rather than any additional layers. I wanted shape, form, detail, colours and markings to take centre-stage, not the layers of muck and grime that we often see before anything else. This is what I came up with.
I’m really happy with this build and have loved every single second of it. It was a really relaxing project from start to finish, my desire to simply follow the instructions and focus on the basics, being a welcome antidote to the many projects that have that as a starting point, followed by endless rounds of additional weathering, much of which frankly I don’t really enjoy! This was back to basics and though that threw up its own challenges (there is no way of hiding mistakes when a flawless finish is your aim…) they were welcome as part of an approach I’d been considering for some time. I’ll now leave it to you to decide how I answered my question and if indeed, a model can still be interesting without weathering!
I plan on discussing this project a little more in the morning, but in the meantime I hope you like this very different model as much as I enjoyed putting it together.
See you tomorrow.
SPENCER POLLARD'S KIT BOX 
Oh, yeah! It’s so refreshing to see a built model without ridiculous amounts of weathering. At most, I think a light wash and some light exhaust/oil staining would be my personal preference. I think pre-shading and black-basing are excessive for anything under 1:32 scale. For a 1:48 scale aircraft, holding it 12″ away from your eyes is like standing 48′ from the actual aircraft. How much of the fine detail will you see?
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Great build Spencer, it’s really refreshing to see it in a non-weathered finish, thanks for the inspiration!
Cheers
Gerry
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Totally agree with this approach. If something goes wrong, you can always turn it into an armor build and hide all the errors (if it matters). Minor weathering should go a long way, as most of us who worked on actual aircraft tried to keep them functionally clean when we could.
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