I took a brief break from the figure to let the colours settle some, and focussed my attention on the trophy rudder that is very much the co-protagonist of this 'vignette'.
As I mentioned in my introductory posting to this project, the control surface in question belongs to a Pfalz D.VIII. But giving some thought to the circumstances around which our Nachthexe would have acquired such an item led me to enhance the backstory. . .
Natalya has been stationed on the [Far] Eastern front; i.e., Manchuria. Her squadron has been charged with harassing and inflicting as much damage as possible on the Unryū ("Cloud Dra- gon"), the Imperial Japanese zeppelin, by any means available to them. Her squadron was equipped with the single-seat night fighter variant of the Avro 504K/U-1, and while hopelessly outmatched by the zeppelin's on-board squadron of Pfalz Dr.I triplanes, they were ready to give their all for the Motherland. . .
As best as I have been able to determine, the the Dr.I and the D.VIII had the same rudder. This being the case, I decided that Natalya's "trophy" came from one of the Japanese triplanes sta- tioned aboard the Unryū. This allowed me to introduce some colour into an otherwise largely monotone palette.
The rudder will have two themes: the golden Imperial chrysanthemum on the top section of the rudder, with the remaining rudder painted a medium sky blue-grey. I will withhold the reveal until a later update; but for now, the rudder has been painted in oils in a proprietary mix of Cerulean Blue, Neutral Grey, and White.
More to follow. . .
“When the cost of a hobby exceeds the fun and doesn't attract new people, the game is over.” -
Oscar Koveleski, August 2003
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