Airbrushing scares some modelers, but there are those who enjoy it. Simon Harrison is one of the latter. "I love an afternoon spent with an airbrush," he says. Simon notes that two aspects make or break a model: a straight, square build and an appealing paint job. "Having an eye for the right finish is critical, as that's where the art lives," he says. Focused on 1/48 scale World War II fighters, Simon especially enjoys building Luftwaffe aircraft. "I love the myriad of colors, the pervasive undercurrent of conjecture when it comes to selecting them, the ensuing employ of liberal amounts of artistic license, and the no-nonsense look of the prototypes," he says, even if the schemes can be challenging. "When I joined IPMS, I found that good Luftwaffe modeling tended to separate the wheat from the chaff". A musician, music teacher, and bookkeeper from Wainwright, Alberta, Canada, Simon spends a lot of time turning sows ears into silk purses, as he puts it. "I'll happily hack old swap-meet kits apart, graft in bits from various manufacturers, saw things into shards, and generally run amok," he says. "At the very least, if a kit s good, I'll add antennas, brake lines, wing lights, seat harnesses and brass-tube gun barrels. Sprinkling some eye candy about in cockpits is fun, too." For painting, Simon keeps an arsenal of three Badger airbrushes. lie got his first 25 years ago, a single-action Model 200 that he still uses every time he builds. "Its reliable, indestructible, and predictable," he says. "I also have a Model 200NII that I use for clear-coating and large-area coverage, and a Model 150-F that's a gem for intricate work."
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