Here is my
opportunity to add another "Aces in 1:48 Scale" to my collection
of digital dioramas.
My ace is Walter Nowotny. He is considered one of the most successful
Fw-190 pilots of WW2. For much of the war, his hunting grounds were the
skies over the Eastern Front. All but three of his 258 confirmed aerial
victories were Soviet aircraft.
In late 1944, Major Nowotny was selected to lead the first experimental
Me-262 fighter unit. On November 6, 1944, Nowotny engaged his Me-262
against a flight of American bombers. His jet emerged from the clouds and
dived vertically into the ground. He did not survive the crash.
I chose to model my "digital diorama" after a fantastic painting
by Iain Wyllie. I picked up the Stormovik on eBay and bought the
Focke-Wulf at the annual Squadron Open House.
Click on
images below to see larger images
Assembly of the
aircraft went fine. I found an old Spitfire pilot to double for a Russian
pilot in the AM Stormovik. The fun part was weathering. Both aircraft are
painted flat white (the undersides of the Fw-190 are light blue). I used a
green and black pastel chalk to weather the Stormovik and did a lighter
brushing of black chalk on the Fw-190 - except for the exhaust stains.
I used a landscaping program and Photoshop to model a wintery Russian
scene. There are even a few snowflakes in the air.
Many Russian pilots met a similar fate under Nowotny's guns. Nowotny and
the Fw-190 were a deadly combination.
For more digital dioramas and "Aces in 1:48 Scale" see www.shortfuse3d.com
Konley
|