WWI Air Wargaming
in Miniature
Part II

Modeling and Painting the Miniatures

Introduction

by Bill Rutherford

WWI Air Wargaming Part I

There are several things you can do to make your miniature aircraft look a bit better on the game table. What follows is not intended as the final word on the subject but will provide a number of simple hints and tips - all tried and proven - that will enhance the appearance of your miniature aircraft for a lot less time and effort than you may expect.

The first thing you'll do, of course, is clean the flash and seams from the miniature. This is even more important with a model plane because it doesn't have the sort of detail (e.g., folds, baggage, straps, etc.) a typical figure does to hide shortcuts in initial cleanup. Flat files earn their keep here because they allow you to clean wing leading and trailing edges with some semblance of straight lines and allow you to (on 1/144th scale planes) quickly clean struts. Half-round and round files are also useful when you need to clean a wing's scalloped trailing edge.

One problem with most available miniatures is that of too-thick flying surfaces. You can carefully file down trailing edges to requisite thinness or you can clean them up , getting rid of seams and flash, grit your teeth, and get on with painting them. I've done the former and tend towards the latter. Thinning down the trailing edges does improve appearances but I'm not sure it's worth the extra effort.

The balance of this missive is broken out into large (1/144th) and small (1/300th) scales, as techniques differ somewhat, depending on your scale.

More WWI Air Wargaming

Back to Table of Contents -- Courier #75
To Courier List of Issues
To MagWeb Master Magazine List
© Copyright 1998 by The Courier Publishing Company.
This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web.
Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com