The Messerschmitt BF109 E4 in real life is a small plane and making this kit in 1/72 scale proved quite challenging for me, but nonetheless, I decided to build this kit.
The wingspan is about five inches.
There are not many parts in this Airfix kit, 64 pieces according to information on the box. I wanted to build this kit so I could try my hand at mottling, and as this did not look too difficult to build, it seemed ideal to try it.
As usual, the cockpit is the first part of the assembly, and these parts and areas need to be painted, and for this, I used RLM 02 Grey.
The underside was painted in AK Real Colours RLM 65
I tried a different brand of paint with this model, RLM 65 from AK Real Colours 3G Acrylic, which was sprayed onto the lower surface after I used the retracted landing gear parts to mask the landing gear bays. I found this to spray really well with a 50/50 mix of thinner and looks like a great colour match to the real aircraft.
After masking the underside, the nose and the rudder of the aircraft are painted white, and the upper surface is painted in RLM 02 Grey, with a mottle of RLM 70 dark green that is crudely applied.
The mottle is crudely applied
I used a template to obtain the mottle pattern, and since this was my first attempt at Luftwaffe camouflage, I thought it wasn’t all that bad.
After applying the decals, I removed the retracted landing gear that I was using as a mask and added the landing gear in the lowered position. The propeller was added to the model, but I then broke and lost the radio mast, pitot tube and the aerolon counterbalance weights whilst removing them from the sprue. There is not much that I could have done about that except to display the model minus these parts.
I also lost one of the cannons whilst removing it from the sprue, but the finished model does not look too bad.
In conclusion, I have decided not to build any 1/72 scale single-engined models, even though I have some in my stash, until I gain much more experience. Some of the parts are tiny and are easily broken or lost.