How did I end up painting 1/144 scale aircraft? The answer is simple: my friend surprised me with a box of 3D printed WWI fighters, and two 28mm figures that he designed in Heroforge, which had not been painted. He’s been painting minis for a WWI aerial combat game for a while, and by now he has an impressive fleet with more than 100 fighters. He was keen to see how I would paint the same minis.
The single-piece minis were printed in PA12 plastic, required no assembly, only the propellers had to be glued to them, which I did only when I finished painting. There was an Albatros D.Va, a Fokker D.VII, a Siemens-Schuckert D.IV, a Fokker Dr.I and a Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.5. in the box. We discussed that no historical accuracy was needed for the game but I still wanted to paint them as authentic as I reasonably could. I spent several days looking for inspiration and when I had enough references, I started painting.
3D printed 1:144 WWI fighters – unpainted 
3D printed 1:144 WWI fighters – partly painted 
3D printed 1:144 WWI fighters – partly painted 
3D printed 1:144 WWI fighters – with more detail 
3D printed 1:144 WWI fighters – with more detail 
3D printed 1:144 WWI fighters – fully painted and with decals 
3D printed 1:144 WWI fighters – fully painted and with decals
Albatros D.Va: I started with a white basecoat, used Apothecary White contrast paint to create shades and overbrushed it with white. I used masking tape to cover the areas that were meant to remain white and painted the rest with Macragge blue.
Fokker D.VII: the white surfaces were painted exactly as above, the red surfaces had a Mechrite Red coat, with a Coat d’Arms Ruby Red overbrush and a Wild Rider Red highlight.
Siemens-Schuckert D.IV: I started with a white basecoat, the soon to be yellow areas were masked with tape and the rest of the aircraft was painted purple. I couldn’t find purple model paint in the local hobby shop, so I bought a tube of Winsor & Newton Galeria Acrylic Winsor Violet. It’s a super thick paste, with a wonderful, vibrant hue, and I’m tempted to try other colours from them. I mixed it with white to add some highlights. The yellow areas were painted with Coat d’Arms Golden Yellow and highlighted with Sun Yellow.
Fokker Dr.I: I gave a black basecoat to this one, followed by Vallejo Dark Grey and a highlight with Neutral Grey. I wanted to make it look like the triplane of Lt. Josef Jacobs with the winged demon on the fuselage. I drew a similar image, printed it on a decal sheet but when I applied it to the aircraft, it was almost invisible. Most probably it would have worked better if I printed it on a white sheet instead of a transparent one but removing all the white edges of this picture in this size – 3.5x8mm! – is impossible for me so I choose another decal from my collection.
Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.5: British forces seem to have had stricter regulations and I haven’t found colourful custom paint schemes like I did for the German ones, so I decided to go with a scheme that is largely based on the authentic one but is simpler than that. The green areas were painted with Castellan Green and highlighted with Elysian Green, the beige areas were painted with Ushabti Bone and for the brown I used Mournfang Brown.
All the propellers were painted with XV-88 and they got a thin highlight with Ushabti Bone, the pilots were painted either with Black Templar or with Gore-Gruntha Fur contrast paints. The metallic parts were painted with a mixture of Vallejo Steel and Silver, washed with Nuln Oil and carefully highlighted with Silver. The tyres were painted with MIG-0033 Rubber and Tyres.
I used mostly Pendraken decals, they have a coherent range for WWI insignia. The rest of them are from Green Stuff World.
Since these are gaming pieces and need protection, I varnished them. All the minis, except for the metallic parts had a layer of Citadel Gloss Varnish and to have a nice matte finish, one day later I gave them a layer of Vallejo Matt Varnish (70.520). The metallic bits were covered with Vallejo Metallic Varnish (77.657).
Previously, I had bad experiences with 3D printed minis: the paint could be rubbed off of them easily, but this material worked very well. It felt porous, the paint adhered to it strongly and the surface was suited for the canvas-covered old fighters. Most surprisingly, when I varnished them, the highlights didn’t fade any bit as it often happened before.
The flight stands are really interesting: they are from Debris of War, they consist of a 75mm MDF hex, a telescopic flight rod, have domed heads and come with cupped magnetic models mounts. They can represent different flying altitudes in the game and the aircraft can be posed thanks to the cupped magnet and the domed head. I haven’t painted them yet, because I need to see the gaming mat first.
That’s the story of how I started a new scale and a new period. My friend has already prepared another box of aircraft and there are many nice fighters on Shapeways too, so more updates are coming up.
Update: five more Fokker Dr.I