Supermarine Spitfire LF Mk.IXe 1/72 Eduard

This is a 312 Czechoslovak squadron machine from June-July 1944, shortly after D Day. I wanted to finish this model for last year’s 80th anniversary of the Normandy invasion, but as always, real life got in the way, so I present it now, almost a year later.😅

I got this kit on eDay 2019 (?) as Eduard’s usual entry gift. However, it depicted an Mk.XVI version in a warbird camo, and I wanted something more interesting (a machine that actually fought and something a bit beyond the plain grey-green RAF camo). After some research, I ended up with this simple conversion. I deleted the bulges on the wings and restored the wheel bay bottoms afterward. The kit had plenty of alternative parts, so otherwise, I could build the IXe from it just fine.

The large kit parts are very nice; my only complaint is about the very exaggerated rib details on the rudder and elevators, but I left them as they were. For a modern kit, many small parts have quite prominent mold seams/misaligned halves. The exhausts were the worst, so I 3D modeled and printed my own. They are now available here (for free):

The Eduard’s decals were bad; the wing roundels were oversized, so they couldn’t fit properly between the ailerons and the leading edge. Also, all the insignia had misaligned colors, resulting in a visible white rim. I trimmed it from the fin flash and replaced all the roundels with correctly sized decals from Airfix Swordfish. I sprayed the DU-J letters through masks I cut on my plotter.

Painting the invasion stripes was fun. I wanted to imitate the sloppy paintbrushed look by, well, sloppily paintbrushing them.😄 First, I masked the stripes and airbrushed just a thin layer of white to trace the demarcations, and then followed through with a 3/0 brush and Vallejo Model paint diluted with a lot of acrylic thinner (the white milky one).

It seems to be a recurring theme online: someone posts a period photo of an aircraft with very sloppy invasion stripes, and comments something like “hee hee, look how sloppy the real things were, and we obsess about having our models neatly painted.” In fact, it actually takes some time and effort to make something look intentionally sloppy but realistic at a small scale.😉 I must say I’m happy with the result and will probably reuse the method on another model someday.

Speaking about realism… accidentally, I got the whole insignia/code letter/invasion stripe layout shifted, so it looks nothing like the real thing in the photo.😂 If you want to build an accurate model of the DU-J, note that there is some debate regarding details, for example, the missing serial number (PL124), whether there really were just the white stripes on the fuselage (and for how long before the black ones were added), whether there was the little Czechoslovak roundel under the cockpit, etc. The blue top of the horizontal stabilizer is AFAIK just a speculation. So, do your own research.

Anyway, enjoy the photos; constructive criticism is welcome as always.