I think I botched a couple of Hasegawa Spitfires and, as a result, I had a bunch of sprues left over that together made a complete kit. I decided to build this as a Mk VIII, since the kit contains all the parts needed to do so.

I followed the advice that Tom Cleaver gave in his build regarding the cockpit. I did have to use some filler, but not as much as I expected to.

The decals came from SuperScale 48-807 RAAF HL/LF Mk VIII Spitfires. I decided to do Norm Smithell's plane. The decal sheet said that his plane was in RAAF light green (same FS number as US interior green) and RAF dark green. The spinner was shown as a bright green. I looked around the web, and the first source said the top was dark earth and dark green, the same colors used on the Thunderbolt I completed earlier this month. However, I found this comment on the BritModeller forums from Peter Malone, which actually spoke with the pilot of this plane, and so went with the normal RAF colors of Ocean Grey and Dark Green over Medium Sea Grey. I used Tamiya XF-82, XF-81 and XF-83, respectively. The white (which was painted first) was a 50:50 mix of XF-2 and X-2, since I wanted a satin finish. Also, other profiles of this plane showed the spinner in a blue, so I used Humbrol 109 WWWI Blue Matt. I did make one mistake in painting: the camouflage should wrap around the cowling.

Page last updated June 15, 2023.