SBS DH.88 Comet

Robbie
I have this kit in the stash and I did wonder what the cockpit should be painted. What did you use ? Also curious of what you used for what looks like to me pre-shading. And finally what colour green did you use? I was going to use Humbrol's Brunswick Green. Oh a very nice looking build.

Gabor Szabo
Hi! Thanks Mate! I try to answer Your questions in order: the comets' interior were essentially black when they shipped out to their owners. Black Magic was the first and there is some discussion about that one's interior was left wood/varnished and only IP, seats and consoles were black. I painted the inner panels and the floor wood on this one to add some interest to the otherwise too plain black cockpit. The surviving Comet undervents several renewal and each time the interior changed a bit. I used simply tan and added the wood grain effect with artist oils for the black I used flat black (from Tamiya or Gunze I didn't remember to be honest). Also I made a subtle wash at the end (and a touch of highlighting) but there were no pre-shading. I used brunswick green (as You mentioned) from the Gunze Mr. Color range with some lightening. Brunswick green is a good match to the contemporary British Racing Green IMHO.

Spanjaard
beautiful trio!

Cuajete
Very nice Comet. I have the Airfix's kit on progress, but it is stagnant due cockpit fit problems with the canopy. I would like to buy an SBS's Comet, but I find it too expensive, so I hope that someday some manufacturer release a new tool in injected plastic. Congratulations for your beautiful Comets!

Gabor Szabo
Thank You! The red and the black are from Airfix. The easiest method to fix the canopy issue is to sand a bit from the fuselage just the rear of the cockpit and add a styrene sheet to there which You can blend to shape. The Airfix fuselage never be the correct shape behing the cockpit anyway. I made a conversion set some times ago for the Airfix but even with that on hand there are a lot of work to make a decent model out of it (O.K. I know the molds were made back in the 50's but still...).

Robbie
Thanks a ton for the info on the cockpit. Since you have been my only good source, I will emulate what you did. The pre-shading question was about the pics you have taping up the ailerons and painting the center of the wings white? ailerons light grey? the fuselage grey? and engine cowlings silver? before you did the brunswick green. Did not know if that is something I also need to do. Now onto another topic, I have the SBS Macchi MC 72 and if you decide to build it and post it on Scalemates, I will be asking the same questions - Cheers

KollHBM
Nice looking trio of comets

Gabor Szabo
Thank YouKoll! Robbie: Yes that was an attempt to some preshading to break up the overall green color. The outcome is so-so as to achieve good gloss finish You have to spray wet and I found that the effect a bit weak compared to my expectations - too much work for too little achievement ... but so far so good now. For more info check out my previous Comet builds - I have collected as much info about the Comets as I can; actually my 1:48 build gave the idea to SBS guys to make their superkit and we were close contact during the plannig stage (I sent them every info I had 🙂 ). I heard some rumour that they plan an 1:48 version - makes my hard work on the horrible Heritage kit pointless 😄