MM Aviation TBD Devastator

[CMDRTED]

Thought I'd throw my hat in the ring with this old 1991 release of the Devastator. This aircraft was a state of the art when introduced in 1935 and entered service in '37. It was armed with either a 30 or 50 in the cowling and had a flex mount in the rear. Normally crewed by 3 for bombing attacks often this was reduced to 2 for torpedo attacks. The "big punch" was the Bliss Levatt mark 13 torpedo, but this proved to be a very unreliable fish. The aircraft Maly put out seems to be one from the Lexington in Coral Sea colours. This battle was probably the 1st and last success for this plane which took part in sinking the Japanese light carrier Shoho. the 1st pics show the Maly kit in it's original colours and circa 1991 burlap paper. I scanned it recolured it and added a more realistic cockpit layout, wheelwells and basically better details....

[CMDRTED]

The 1st pic shows the pile of recoloured and printed parts cut out and placed in a pile. The heck with cutting out a part only when it's needed....

[cjwalas]

The color on this one is what has stopped me from building it. Your recolor makes all the difference. Looking forward to seeing this one come together, especially with your modifications.
Chris

[CMDRTED]

I started on the engine and cowling. The engine in the kit was a basic flat disc/former with the engine printed on. I modified some parts from the old GPM Avenger kit and glued up a passible radial withsome of the forward details. The big gray cylinder is the prop hub one pic shows how much had to be removed to allow it to fit in the modified cowling....

[CMDRTED]

thanks Chris, hope I don't disappoint! The colours actually weren't too bad, the paper did me in. I always liked this old bird,, I had the Mongram kit way back, I even painted it in prewar colours. I couldn't effectively simulate the aluminum fuselage so I kept the as printed scheme.

[doctormax]

nice choice and the recolouring looks good.

[SJPONeill]

I wonder if Maly would be adverse to rereleasing your modded kit as an update on the original? I like a lot of their older kits and can live with/deal to fit issues but recolouring is beyond me at the moment...have had a couple of attempts but have yet to be even remotely happy with the results...I find that using a mouse for colouring just isn't precise enough...how do other people do it?

[CMDRTED]

Thanks guys! The cockpit fuselage had to built up as an integral unit. The fuse formers had cockpit parts and the cockpit parts were part of the fuselage structure etc. I recolured and detailed the cockpit. One research source stated that most devastators innards were left aluminum, and another stated it had the green insides. I went with green. I used a computer painting technique I called forced perspective or fake 3D. Basically it is using darker and lighter shades in areas that trick the eye into thinking the flat surface is actually 3D. This was used on the decks and inner fuselage stringers, the effects are actually pretty neat. I'll show the fuselage sequence 1st then the detaoled out cockpit...

[doctormax]

Originally Posted by SJPONeill

I wonder if Maly would be adverse to rereleasing your modded kit as an update on the original? I like a lot of their older kits and can live with/deal to fit issues but recolouring is beyond me at the moment...have had a couple of attempts but have yet to be even remotely happy with the results...I find that using a mouse for colouring just isn't precise enough...how do other people do it?

I use a mouse the first time i tried any little bit of reclouring was with a Toshiba laptop with that tiny little rollerball thing not a mouse pad and that was not at all easy or fun at all.

[CMDRTED]

I thankyou for the compliment and confidence. They have guys that do this stuff in thier sleep! The Poles probably snigger at some of our efforts and show them to thier kids of what not to do! (Maybe not that harsh but they are IMO the worlds best card designers!)