Without question, the rugged B17 “ Flying Fortress” became a symbol of the Second World War. Tasked with the mission of long-range strategic bombing, the AIR FORCE CREWMEMBERS found the daily missions to be dangerous and deadly. The B17F “Memphis Belle” and its crewmembers become a legend because they survived to all the missions.

  What to say about the kit?  I am talking about a Verlinden resin kit, we know well how much it is perfect. 11 resin pieces easy to assembly full of details, 1 lead foil, 1 piece of copper wire, 1 rubber tube.

 For the resin pieces You need only to cut out the carriers (and sand), assemble the pieces with a super glue and use a very very small quantity of putty for the few joining holes. The lead foil is for the chute belts and the rubber tube is for the oxygen mask. Nothing else.

After drying from a wash with water and soap, I decided to paint the figure with brush and Winsor & Newton oil colors. Why? I think that oil colors can imitate really the look of leather and skin. I primed the figure using Humbrol enamels by airbrush: Sand 187 for face skin and  Black 33 for the rest (remember that oil colours are translucent, so the base is really important). Leather colors range from a straight black to various shades of red brown to almost orange yellow.  The leather was made mixing raw umber and burnt sienna. Dark shades were made with an Humbrol black 33 after the oil was dried (be careful). The highlights were made by drybrush with raw umber and yellow oils.  The face was painted before assembling (like accessories): glue it on an home made support and take a brush. The face skin base tone  was made mixing burnt sienna+raw umber+yellow ochre, and after was highlighted with cadmium yellow and titanium white. The short beard was made with a touch of raw umber. Accessories were painted  with Humbrol enamels - Gunze acrylics and weathered with oil washes and drybrushing. For the lens I used Microscale Kristal Klear.  Finally covered all with Gunze flat coat.

This is a kit easy to be assembled, full of details and need a little bit of time to be painted if you use oils.

 1) information and pictures mailed to me from Jim Harris VP of “Memphis Belle Memorial Association”, take a little bit of time to visit their web site  www.memphisbelle.com

 2) Cockpit - deltaeditrice, Italian magazine about WW2

 3) Memphis Belle movie.

 This crewmember figure now is displayed at MEMPHIS BELLE MUSEUM, and I would like to thank a lot the “Memphis Belle  Memorial Association” and in particular  the VP of MBMA Mr. JIM HARRIS: they gave me a great chance not only because I am a modeler but also because I am glad to keep the memory of all Heroes that fight for freedom.

 Happy modeling ,

Maui C.                        

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