Treflon's blog: Crashed Defiant at Dunkerque

Introduction

Since 1980, this is my 4th Defiant build. First came the old Airfix kit, which vastly increased my cursing répertoire, much to the dismay of my parents. Here's a picture of the build:

Then came the Classic Airframes 1 48th offering ( the old version, not the new one), which was the most painful experience I ever had with short run kits: horrendous fit, inconsistent engraving, disintegrating decals, vacuformed canopies ( I hate vacuformed canopies) just to mention a few.

Next came the Czech Master Resin in 1 72th. A nice kit, with mostly resin parts, but being a short run item, it was a bit "rough" in parts, and again it had vacuformed canopies. ( Not to mention that selling one of my kidneys barely covered its acquisition)

Finally sometime in 2015, Airfix issued a new tooling of this bird, which is the subject of this post. With the addition of an Eduard photoetch set for the cockpit (a bit of a luxury, since there's not much you can see, even with an open canopy) and metal barrels for the .303 machine guns (can't remember the manufacturer though), I was good to go.

Planning the scene

Since the Defiant was not very successful in its original day fighter role, it felt only natural to present it in its "natural habitat", i.e. "crashed". Quite a few Defiants were lost during the evacuation of Dunkerque (sorry, as a native French speaker, I simply cannot write "Dunkirk"...), so this fact provided a context for the scene to come.

First order of business was to find pictures of crashed Defiants to determine which kind of damage it could sustain and still be able to belly-land. Since thee only photo I could find was this one....

...I used it as a base to represent damage. As for the belly landing, it is simply the best way to suggest that the plane has actually crashed and not just landed.

Armed with a cutter, plastic strips, plastic sheets and metal foil, I attempted to reproduce damage to the best of my very limited strachbuilding skills.

I wasn't satisfied with the result and ended up using metal sheet for the shredded fabric.

Building the diorama

I used a small picture frame as the base, with a piece of foamboard for the small dune, and everything was covered with modelling paste (I believe it was air-drying Fimo...). Once dry, I sprinkled a fine layer of artificial snow (mine comes in a brandless plastic bag, so I cannot be specific as to its precise designation) over a coat of white glue and airbrushed with various sand colours. Then came some burnt Umber oil washes and drybrushing with Ochre, light yellow and white oil paints.

The figures

Initially my thought was to have French soldiers walking on the beach and examining the wreckage. Unfortunately I couldn't find any so I used Zvezda's 1 72 British Infantry figures. These are hard plastic figures aimed at wargamers, and very nicely done. All they needed were a few strips of plastic to better define webbing and shoulder straps.

The pilot and gunner ( I haven't figured who's who) were more or less converted from

- A Revell RAF figure (ex Preiser) (on the left)

- A mixture of Revell legs with the torso and head from the Airfix Defiant's kit (on the right), with metal sheet for the coat and Duro for the life vest.

Arms were scratchbuilt with Duro

The plane

Not much to be said really. It was painted with Gunze and Tamiya acrylics, panel lines received a wash of .... Tamiya panel line wash.

All panel lines were then lightly accented with an mist of very diluted Tamiya brown and black paint on one side of the line and Sand yellow on the other side. I use business cards as masks, spraying directly on them. This leaves a nice, sharp, delimitation on one side of the painted area and a very subtle fade on the other.

Final Assembly

At this stage, I couldn't help feeling a sensation of emptiness... Pictures of Dunkerque in 1940 show beaches CLUTTERED with abandoned vehicles, equipment,...(are you reading this, Mr Nolan?...). This was perfectly depicted in the 1964 film masterpiece "Week-end à Zuydcoote" (are you reading this, Mr Nolan?...). So I pulled out the Duro from the fridge (yes I keep Duro in my fridge...) and modelled bits of clothes and stuff. I also discarded a French Adrian Helmet from an old Esci figure and added it to the scene. The idea was to convey an idea of precipitated evacuation and despair.. I'm not sure I succeeded, but at least the beach looks a little less "bare"...