Special Hobby 1/32 Nieuport 11
By Nicolas Renoult
This is the Special Hobby kit. The details out of the box and the fit are not too bad, but it need way more work than a WNW kit. I remade or improved several parts or sub-assemblies, such as the engine (resin copy of a WNW LeRhône 9C), the gun mount, the engine cowling (resin copy of a A-model part, as the part in the SH kit is the larger cowling of a Nieuport 16 with a LeRhône 9J), and a lot of smaller parts... It was quite long, but it's finally there!
The scheme is a Imperial Russian scheme, with no less than 12 roundels (normally 14, but this one as a skull on the tail instead of 2 more roundels!). I used a Begemot decal sheet, but in fact I only used the skulls from the set, as I painted the roundels with custom masks. I also used a nice small DUKS logo written in Russian (on the engine cowling) that come from another Begemot set (for Nieuport 21).
The color is my interpretation of the dull aluminium coating of the Russian, darker and duller than the aluminium coating of the French, as the aluminium particles were coarser. It's a mix of Gunze H337 (FS35237), Tamiya XF-82 (Ocean Grey 2), and XF-16 (flat aluminium), followed by a Flory dark dirt wash, and various effects, especially on the front and underside (AK engine oil, engine grime, fuel stains, Mig Earth...). I was quite light on the dirt, as I finally preferred to represent an aircraft operated in summer.
The rigging was made with standard EZ-line, 0.5mm micro-tube and a few Gaspatch turnbuckles. The Lewis Mk.II is from Gaspatch, too.
Inside Photos
Outside Photos
It was definitely not a shake-n-bake kit, but it was quite pleasant, and I really like the subject, as much Russia (not very represented in WW1 modelling) as this cute little French aircraft that stopped the Fokker Scourge in 1916.
Here is a link to the build thread, if it can help someone: http://forum.largescaleplanes.com/index.php?showtopic=60446.
© Nicolas Renoult 2016
This article was published on Wednesday, June 29 2016; Last modified on Wednesday, June 29 2016