Aerospatialle SA365N Dauphin 2 – Part 5: base coats

I have happened to acquire Eduard's cockpit masks for the SA365 together with the model, so I proceeded immediately with applying them. The next thing I did was to throw them straight to the bin. The masks are dedicated to Kitty Hawk model, which seems to have every piece of glazing of a different shape than the Trumpeter.

Eventually I masked the windows with tape and Maskol. The all exciting task of filling and sanding continued for a while as the canopy was less than a perfect fit.

...and some more Surfacer 500, and even more sanding. 

Between sanding, and sanding, I primed all the small bits. Pieces that are to be painted metallic were painted with gloss black (Tamiya X-1) 

This project turned into a metallic frenzy. I wanted to test few different metallic paints. Exhaust was airbrushed with mix of Alclad's Jet Exhaust, Steel and Polished Brass to get the heat discolouration.

Camera was treated with steel metallic powder from Uschi van der Rosten. It's pretty amazing product, and the effect depends on the surface preparation (colour and glossiness). It's simply applied with q-tip, and then polished.

Back to the choppa...
Fuselage primed with Surfacer 1200. More sanding as the primer exposed all the flaws of the surface.

This model is a playground in painting experiments. Rather than usual preshading technique highlighting all the panel lines, I focused on darkening the shadows as observed in the real helicopter. I used XF-54 Dark Sea Grey and XF-63 German Grey to replicate and overemphasize the shadows (it will be partially lost under the base cot of paint).

All fuselage was painted with XF-2 Flat White. There's no real difference if the paint is matte, or gloss, as I will rely on the clear varnish to achieve final surface finish.
Undershading was somewhat lost, so the colour modulation was done with addition of XF-19 Sky Grey and XF-54 Dark Sea Grey.

Masking for the edges of blue stripes was done with another fresh purchase - Tamiya's masking tape for the curves. It's 2mm wide and is highly flexible to follow the odd shapes. More masking to prevent overspray was done with the usual yellow tape. Blue was sprayed with X-4 Blue. Highlights and shadows were done with the addition of X-14 Sky Blue and X-3 Royal Blue respectively.

Sigh of relief after removing masking. No overspray, and no paint peeling off. All the precautions with thorough degreasing and not touching the model with bare hands paid off.