Me 262s The Last Stand - seemed like a good idea at the time

I'm trying to make the current 30 day lockdown a little bit more productive by painting 30 "engines" worth of Blood Red Skies planes. So far I have completed 8 Bf109F, 6 Il2 Sturmovics, and now 7 Me262s.

The 109Fs are 3d printed from RoC-Works stl files - beautiful models and I painted them as 3/JG27 in North Africa, including Hans Jochim Marsaille as the Ace. I has a bit of a problem as i decided to try and use a clay wash. These are popular on The Ready Room - lots of praise for Florry washes. I had a similar clay wash and decided to give it a try. Basically you apply a generous coat of the clay wash, let it dry then clean the model with a damp cloth or cotton bud. This should remove the wash except in the panel lines. In theory. In my case this was not a success - I just got a muddy model (doh). In the end I cleaned up the models and went for the tried and trusted Agrax \ Soft-tone pin wash. I like the Bf109F. It is probably the best and most balanced 109 in BRS, before the added weight starts to impact performance.  Decals from Misc Minis.

The Sturmoviks are 3d printed from the Plane Printer patreon. I subscribed for £6 a month. So far it has been well worth my investment as he has produced a fair few models I will be printing in due course.  I decided to try and paint the squadron in whitewashed winter camouflage. This seemed a good idea at the time. In the end it got a bit complicated as I decided to do them all as individuals rather than all the same scheme, reasoning that the whitewash would wear off differently in each case. The whitewash was a bit challenging but after using a fair amount of sponging I was happy enough with the result. These are the early single seat versions which I confidently expect to suffer just as much as the real world versions did from rear attacks.  Decals from the spares box.

Which brings me to the Me262s. Something about doing the Sturmoviks as individuals must have stuck in my mind, because when it came to the 262s I thought I would give it another go. This isn't as strange as it seems as when I was looking through the various on-line sources it became clear that there was little consistency in colour schemes. This was partly due to the rapidly changing war situation, but mostly because the supply of paint was getting erratic as the war moved into it's final stages. The scheme that most caught my fancy was a real "End of Days" one - aircraft were delivered to units and flown in combat with no camo at all. You know it wont end well when your planes are delivered without paint! In the end I painted up seven different camo styles ALL of which were used at one time or another by 3/JG7. They look a bit strange to my usually more bureaucratic mind but they will be fine I'm sure. Models by Warlord - and I have to say they were a pleasure to paint, decals Misc Minis and the spares box.

OK the more BRS aware will know that seven Me262s is a big "chunk" of points in the game. In fact if you are playing the current recommended restrictions on tournaments you can have (and indeed must have) only four of them, all with rubbish pilots. I have seven because I bought a Squadron and an Ace set, and before I had did the maths properly had ordered a foam transport tray from Just Lasered to hold them all, so I was committed (Doh!)

So that brings my total up to 28 "engines" with a fortnight or so to go. No idea what will be next, but I have plenty to choose from.

Cheers!