1/48 Dragon Fw-190 A-8

by Matija Lisec

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This is a model of a Focke Wulf FW190 A-8 in 1/48 scale by Dragon.  It was enriched with a CMK cockpit kit (which is intended for a Tamiya Wurger but it fits, not a perfect match, but...) and Eduard`s Access and scribing templates for a A-3 (from which I used pieces needed for the back wheel well an two fueling hatches). A nice kit, Dragon, but VERY nerve eating when assembling the wing, fuselage and engine cowling pieces.  Not a Tamigawa, I say...Overall nice details, some strange molding marks on the lower wings, but hey, it`s not supposed to be easy....hm? 

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This is my interpretation of a Franz Eisenach`s plane from I./JG54 stationed in Courland near Riga at the end of `44.  Eisenach was instated for Gruppenkommandeur and received a new Anton 8, reaching a total of 129 kills.  Known as a Stormovik killer, all of his kills were made in the Eastern front (he was a Zerstorer pilot before), and he was able to do a 9 kills in a day.  JG54 was pinned down in Courland to the end of the war where he was captured with the rest of his unhappy crew.

Little is known about the plane of Eisenach (at first I would like to say that this was the best intel I could find).  It is probable that it was factory painted in a RLM 75/83 combination and when received underwent a certain modification by overpainting it`s fuselage with RLM 83 (not  Bright Green but Darker Green!) and RLM81(this was my touch, it was not uncommon, that paint started appearing and Luftwaffe started experimenting with it).  Colours used were Gunze Sangyo acrylics and Model Master paint which I used for 81(paint was actually Chocoladenbraun, since the shade of
that colour is still a little dubious...) Weathering was done with a enamel wash (black-brown combo) an d dry pastels.  I love pastels and I prefer them over airbrush work for stains.

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Overall, this build lasted several months (parts of the kit were riding in my glove department for a month or two...) because of a mishap when painting-some black paint managed to get to the instrument panel an ruin it, so I had to (after nearly trashing it) cut open the fuselage to correct the mistake.  Also,I had trouble with wing-fuselage joint-when I installed the CMK cockpit, I realised that fuselage became too narrow for a fit with wings.  I corrected that with a bar of styrene as a spacer bar and then when I joined them together, cockpit tub decided to part with cockpit walls...Great...Then, joining of the cowling(4 pieces!?)-a HUGE gap!  Humongous...I had to apply so much putty you couldn`t believe. Other fits were OK, some Mr.Sufacer work and it was done.  Finally.
There is a big error which I couldn`t rectify, on the front window there is a damage from disconnecting from a sprue-an accident when opening one of the bags :(.
Base was made with some laminate strips and earth was-fine earth mixed with
white glue an water and grass was from an old brush (this was done in a hurry, it was not so important...).Figure is from a ICM kit (one of my first figures).
I'm happy with the build, there are errors, but I`m still learning...
Thanks for having a look!
Matija

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Photos and text © by Matija Lisec