[Kevin WS]

I thought it may be useful to show a couple of things I am using in this build.

For colouring the white edges and for touch-ups, I use a cheap watercolour set, and water colour pencils (often called water soluble pencils as well). The pencils can be quite expensive, but they are very useful and last a long time.

The pencils I use on all my models for the white cut edges (and in the case of buildings to hide the printed fold marks on the corners of buildings), and I will also use them on this model as well to fix the “scale patterns” at joins.

The pencils can be used like an ordinary pencil, or moistened. The lines or shading drawn can also be worked over with a wet brush to soften or blur the effect.

I always varnish my models before I cut out – the varnish as well as protecting and preventing splitting on folds, also assists me in enabling me to wipe off watercolors if they are wrong. I always varnish the finished models as well to protect the watercolors.

Photo 1 Shows (from left to right) the watercolor paints, watercolor pencils, the Arkansas whetstone which I mentioned in an earlier post (used to sharpen my blades), and some shaping tools I picked up in a craft shop.

The Arkansas whetstone I dropped with the result about a quarter of an inch broke off – but it is still serviceable.

The shaping tools on the right are normally used with a soft pad to shape paper flower petals. I found the soft pad useless and just use a hard surface (my cutting board).

In a model like this one with compound folds, the shapes often end up with little sharpish “peaks” - these tools are useful for burnishing the inside of the model parts to smooth out the “peaks” and also rounden curved areas. I use them after the parts have been glued. They can also be used very effectively to smooth out joins.