Aerospatialle SA365N Dauphin 2 – Part 7: final varnish

Last few elements left to be painted. Undercarriage assembled and painted  XF-80 Royal Light Grey. Shock pistons painted with mix of AK's True Metal mix of Silver and Gun Metal.

Float covers on the fuselage painted in XF-25 Light Sea Grey. As they are made of fabric I did some random shadows and highlights around the edges adding XF-2 White and XF-54 Dark Sea Grey to visually imitate uneven surface.

Some pin wash with oild paint Abteilung 502 Shadow Brown. I added some Buff colour to make the shadows less pronounced on the white areas.

Once the oils dried a little bit I wiped the was outside the crevices with the cosmetic buds. A lot of cosmetic buds.

Final coats of gloss varnish. I painted the upper fuselage first, let the varnish dry for 48 hours and then coated the underside, and put the whole assembly aside to cure in full.

I had some time to work on the base for the model while varnish was drying. Since it's rather strict 'out of the box' build - I didn't have much choice other than using what's in the box, or the box itself.

 I used the box art to create the plinth,

Finished base ready for the model.