New Flight Plan painting project

[Winters]

I’ve recently got the NFP and I have started to paint the planes. I thought I would share my ideas and progress. Maybe someone finds it interesting or useful!

So, why paint the planes in NFP?

First reason: they are grey. They could do with some more colour right? At least M44 armies are green, or red or something, and very distinguishable at a glance.

Second reason: I can tackle each plane as a little project of it’s own. Every plane is different, so I can choose one, the one I feel most attracted to paint, and crack on.

Third reason: planes are fun to paint! Even if I like painting minis, painting armies is a chore. You need to paint roughly the same guys/tanks over and over, and always the same colours. With planes that doesn’t happen and you get to use fun bright colours too!

So I haven’t painted my M44 armies, at least yet. Maybe I never will, I haven’t decided yet if I really want to. But planes, sure!

Now, my approach as I said is to tackle each plane as a mini project of it’s own. It makes sense to me because you can’t do “chain production painting” on so different models.

I’ll choose a plane to paint, search for real images of it, search for paint/camo schemes, and go with the one that I like the most. Then I’ll pick paints from what I have avaiable and do my best. I’m by no means a pro in this. Just for fun.

I’ll probably also skip intricate details like insignia or numbers, or anything that I don’t feel like to paint really. I’ll go for the general look of the plane.

My idea is to keep these projects short and fun. As I’m writing this I’ve already painted 2 of the smaller planes, it took me about 3 hours each, which for the detail it might be too much, but I’m a bit slow. Anyways that’s a very short project compared to what I’m used to so I was able to paint one per hobby night.

Without much further ado, I’ll start sharing the finished (at least for now) planes!

[Winters]

Here is the Junkers Ju 87, also known as the Stuka!

It still needs a coat of matte varnish, and I may or may not add a black or brown wash to it, i’m not sure because I already like how it looks even if it’s simple. Tiny models don’t need much to look fine for the table.

As for the scheme, I went for this one which apparently was used on France 1940.
I liked it because the bright yellow which I think makes it pop and catches the eye.

I used this image as a guide

To paint this one I used the following colours:

You can search for them using the numbers of the bottles, if the name is obscured.

These are an example of what could be used to get a similar look. Any brand of miniature paint or similar colours can work!

I would recommend getting acrylic paints designed for miniature painting though, as some other options like crafts paints can be worked with but they are not optimal.

You don’t need me to explain much about them, except that I mixed the white and gray in equal parts to paint the underbelly and the crystal of the canopy. Even if the bottom of the plane seems just white, pure white rarely looks good when painted on a miniature. Pure white doesn’t happen much in reality.
I think thats what I’m going to do for every canopy and any surface that appears to be just white. Anyways you don’t really get to see the underside of the plane so I am not very worried about it.

[mzungu]

Great pictures. Painted all mine a year ago and enjoyed it a lot. Thanks for encouraging others with your enthusiasm.

[Winters]

Thanks! I would be thrilled if I encouraged someone to try it!

[Winters]

Here is the Hawker Typhoon!

I chose some very grayish desaturated colours for this one. I think it serves the pourpose of camuflage very well, as it would be very difficult to spot by a enemy plane from above (or below, where is gray). The idea is that it would “mix” with the background, which it could be gray skies, or the surface of the ocean or the green ground of europe or Britain.

I thought the irregular camo would be hard to achieve, but in reality is very easy because any mistake can be fixed by “melting” it to the pattern of the camo.

And here are the colours I used. (whoops! I didn’t use yellow for this one )

[goncalo]

Really really impressed at the kind of detail you were able to put on the miniatures! I don’t know if it’s the close up shots or the lighting, but you the end result with the Hawker Typhoon looks stellar. The camouflage pattern looks amazing

The Stuka also looks really cool, even with the simpler color scheme. I think some decals would top it off and take it to the next level in terms of detail, but I don’t know where you could get those. I’ve heard of people using them, but never thought to know where they buy them

I can’t stop looking at the Hawker’s camo pattern, it looks so great! You make me want to paint my own miniatures, even if I think I can’t pull it off

Just posting these pictures here was great, but making it a living topic where you update it as you go… That was a genius idea!

Looking forward to see the rest of the miniatures!

[pragueimp]

They look really good. Great effort!
Doing a bit of online research, getting the colours together and then painting them is a really satisfying thing.
So just for that reason I would encourage others to give it a go.
But of course they also look great when you are using them in the game.
In terms of markings, it is not necessary, but you can get decals/transfers online for them if you want to.

Having said all that, I don’t see why Days of Wonder didn’t make an attempt to colour them in some way. Given how much the Pack costs, I would have expected at least different base colours for each air force.
I know Wings of War is a very different game, but the models in it are excellent - fully painted and with markings.

Looking forward to seeing the rest of your planes!

[Winters]

Thanks! It’s not worth all that praise but I’ll take it

It’s really not that difficult, you could certainly do it if you get good paint, an ok brush and some practice.
I would aim for a size 0 brush with a nice point, and maybe a 1 or a 2 for the big planes, at least for painting the main surface, then go back to the 0 for the more detailed work.

I’m discovering it’s a lot simpler that I thought it to be. Models are small, and you don’t need much detail to make them look good. You should try it, it’s a nice hobby.

As for decals go, I thought about that, maybe I’ll get some, It would certainly look nice. I just don’t know where to get them or the scale really. I need to research it.

[Winters]

Yep, the research is fun! I don’t go very deep into it but choosing the color scheme to do takes me a while, lots of fun options.

Thanks!

[pragueimp]

On this thread on Board Game Geek they suggest that MM44 Air Pack planes are 1/300 scale.
I assume New Flight Plan is the same size.

Dom’s Decals is a good site for all scales.
This is the 1/300 page.

[mzungu]

Here are some good references on the DOW Memoir '44 Forum

Forums - Play different.™ | Days of Wonder

[Winters]

Those are way more advanced than mine! Great to see what can be done with them

[Winters]

Thanks! I’ll look into it!

[Winters]

Here is the Messerschmitt Bf 109!

Going the opposite way than the Hawker Typoon, I picked a very bright light green for the base color, and then drew the pattern in a dark green. Even if the bright green wouldn’t be the smartest choice in real life, and not for lack of a more toned down light green, I chose that one to get the colours to contrast. I think it doesn’t look to bad.

As for the camo, I didn’t go with any particular scheme, I ended doing a mashup of some similar ones.

Here is my choice of paints

[Winters]

Here is the IL-2 Sturmovik!

For this one I disobeyed my own rule of not using pure white, and did it’s belly pure white. Maybe its not that bad of an idea on small vehicles.

Here is the camo I tried to paint, I guided myself on the latter 3 images from Flames of War wargame.

Also, the canopy of this one was very well sculpted, so I could paint it properly, unlike the previous planes which I free handed it (more or less) or just ignored painting it.

[Winters]

Here is the P-47 Thunderbolt!

For this one I also guided myself with a Flames of War model.

I went for the chrome paintjob to change it up a little. Painting metal is not as straightforwards as painting other colors. If you just paint it silver, it will look too shiny where the paints covers, or it will look like the color below the silver coat of paint, because of bad coverage. So I went ahead and mixed silver and white paint. I was left with a kind of shiny, very white plane. I should have gone with gray and silver or maybe a mix of white, gray and silver (very light gray and silver). To fix this japanese looking plane, I gave it another coat of silver, with grayed it a little. That that you saw was the end result. I think its ok.

[Winters]

Here is the Supermarine Spitfire!

It turned out a little bit dark mayhaps. I should have sticked with Typhoon colours. Well, it’s done anyways.

Here the guidance:

[goncalo]

Love the P-47 Thunderbolt and the Messerschmitt Bf 109! The colors on the Messerschmitt are really awesome and I didn’t know it had such a big yello area in the front. Really well done.

The IL-2 Sturmovik looks like it has a woodland camouflage pattern, which seems like the sort of look that they might be going for. Is the underside of it just plain white? I wonder why they would have gone with that color.

Yes, the Spitfire looks a bit dark, but it’s nothing too obvious and you can always use it in night scenarios and it will match the ambience of the combat

So far it’s been really great following these miniatures, keep us posted

[Winters]

@goncalo

Is the underside of it just plain white? I wonder why they would have gone with that color.

I guess that if you look a plane from below, you will have a hard time seeing it if its colored light, as the sky is. So white is not that bad of a choice I guess.

As for the P-47 Thunderbolt being chrome, which kind of baffled me at first, I’ve read that the allies stopped painting camo on their planes in the late war. P-51 mustang it is also pictured a lot with metal colors. The explanation I found is that in late war the allies had so much air superiority over the axis, that they didn’t even bother to paint them. It was rare to be attacked by enemy planes. Plus painting them would have made the production slower, and on such big surface, paint itself would have made the plane heavier, and the painted surface would cause more drag than an unpainted surface, thus making the planes slower too.

Thanks for your words!

I’ve many painted I haven’t photographed yet. I already painted a big one that I think came out pretty well.

Cheers!

[Winters]

I’ve been very busy and post rate came to a halt, I’ll try to make up for it!

Here we have the F4U Corsair!