Collared Flycatcher - Johan Scherft

[Kevin WS]

Home stretch..... Nothing too tricky - just care is needed to make sure everything is aligned.

Picture 1 - After the wire had dried, I then attached the head

• The instructions say to attach the head and then the wings.
• I initially thought of doing the wings first, but being cautious I dry fitted the wings and then checked the fit of the head. Nope - does not work this way around as the head will NOT fit well - the wings need to overlap the head, not the other way around.
• So, it was on with the head - which was a perfect fit.

Picture 2 - This shows the wings prior to attaching. In this, you can see the lower flaps on the root of the wings have been bent down. They need to be bent to an acute angle - around 120% at least. Dry fitting is important.

Picture 3 - The finished head.

• Just before attaching the wings, I attached the beak to the head.
• I left it to this stage to make sure that I could get the vertical alignment of the beak spot on.
• Note that the beak has a "flat spot" on the top at the tip - this is correct and should be at the top of the beak - basically, the seam at the bottom of the beak should be aligned with the seam at the bottom of the head.
• Looking sideways, make sure the beak is aligned as shown - in line with the black of the head.
• Again this part fitted perfectly over the "grey glueing area", so the alignment is spot on from the start.

PART 2 below is a continuation of this section of the build.

[Kevin WS]

PART 2

Lastly the wings.

• In the instructions, the wings are to be bent further down about one-third of the way out - basically where the "knuckle" is, and after the wings are been made up, there is a triangular gap at this point facilitates this bend.
• However, no matter how hard I tried to get the required angle, I could not do so without causing the rounded shape of the wing to collapse, causing an ugly flat surface with a prominent crease in it.
• I tried with the other wing and got the same result.
• Eventually, I gave up trying to get the angle shown and straightened the wings, reinforcing the sections I had bent with some PVA.
• I then rebent them as far as I could to get a curve without compressing the wings and causing them to collapse.
• If you have the same issue and you want the extreme angle, then the easiest way to get this would be then cut a slit back in the wing underside from the triangular gap, and then overlap this slightly as you fold. The wing shape and profile will then be preserved.
• I was quite happy with the result of the less severe bend and so left the wings are they. The difference in angle to me does not matter - birds flap their wings and the angle I ended up with still looked very natural!

Attaching the wings was a piece of cake! They slotted right on perfectly and again exactly covered the "grey glueing" areas on the body. However, make certain that the skewer they slot onto does not project more than 1 cm, otherwise this will affect the bend of the wings.

Picture 1 - The angle of the wings from the front. Note how well the wings fit at the join with the body, as in the following pictures as well.

Picture 2 - The underside fit.

Picture 3- The fit around the shoulders.

The only parts left are now the feet.

Pictures 4 and 5 - This shows the feet glued in place. Lift the flaps on the body side and glue them against these flaps and the body. Use lots of glue. If you are using PVA, the "thigh flaps" will soften and can be bent around the legs as in Picture 8.

And that basically is the Flycatcher complete!

The last step is to now let it dry, and then go over it with watercolour pencils and paint to touch up. Another spray of matt varnish and it will be done!

[Kevin WS]

Although I have covered this elsewhere, it is perhaps briefly worth recapping the process I use to touch up a bird when it is finished.

Materials and Mixing

• I use cheap watercolours (from a stationary or cut-price store) as well as watercolour pencils (art stores generally are the best place to look for these).
• Watercolours I mix on the watercolour palette itself - this gives me better colour control.
• I clean up the palette afterwards with a damp cloth.
• Watercolour pencils are used dry or moistened.

Painting Watercolours

• I basically take the colour I want on the finished item (as closest to), flood my brush with water and then pick up the colour and transfer to the black or white palette - depending on if I want to darken or lighten the shade.
• I then "mush" around to get the rough shade, and then start painting, adding a bit more water if required.

Blending

• There are a number of ways to blend the colours on the model.
• I moisten my finger and rub it over the painted area.
• I do the same with a moist brush (less control)
• Before building, I varnished the model - this means if I make a mistake with the watercolours when touching up, I can just "wash" the colour off.

You will find blending the colours desaturates them and they almost disappear leaving the white (or overly dark) areas coloured in. This is why an exact colour match to start with is NOT critical - close enough in a similar shade is adequate.

Finishing Off
Finally, it is essential to then seal the watercolours with a last coat of varnish. In this case I just a cheap matt varnish straight off the "cheap" rack in the local hardware store! I used to use expensive varnish but found a local cheapie that works just as well - in fact better!

[Don Boose]

A beautiful bird! Very realistic in flight.

Don

[Kevin WS]

Thanks Don.

Just finished touching it up (midnight), so will spray and mount it tomorrow, and then take some pictures of the final result

[Erik Zwaan]

Congratulations Kevin, you really have made a wonderful flycatcher! The bend in the wings is tricky (there's a fly catcher building tutorial on YouTube prepared by Johan Scherft) and it's good you didn't try your luck further, at the expense of having to make new wings...

Good to see you know all the paper modeler's tricks. Don't forget to add a bit of glossy transparent paint to the eyes after varnishing. Matt eyes don't see anymore, if you know what I mean....

Cheers,
Erik

[Kevin WS]

Thanks Erik. I cannot incidentally find the video on YouTube - ae you thinking maybe of the Firecrest?

The bending - yup, I really did not want to make new wings.

Bird has now been sprayed and the eyes vanished! On some birds I have also varnished the beaks with a semi-gloss.

[Erik Zwaan]

Hi Kevin, I have been mistaken about the video. There are several YouTube tutorials about making Johan's birds, but not for the collared flycatcher. Think I indeed mixed up with the firecrest.

By the way, I was just checking Johan's website ( http://jscherft.wixsite.com/johan-nederlands/modellen) and noticed he also developed models of a small frog and even a toad. As far as I can see they're not for sale (yet) as downloadable kits but, they look absolutely stunning. The website is in Dutch and click on "papierkunst" (paper art), "modellen" (models) and/or "bouwplatenwinkel" (paper models shop).

Some of his models have also been published by Leon Schuijt and are commercially available, such as the barn owl and sparrows. A challenge is the jay bird (in Dutch: Vlaamse Gaai) because of the size of the model in combination with the thin paper. I think you will love it.

Cheers,
Erik

[Kevin WS]

Thanks Erik for coming back on the video.

I also really like the frog and toad!

[gotham]

Great build.😸😸😸