Arado Ar 196 (The Shooting Star)

The Shooting Star (French: L’Étoile mystérieuseL’Étoile mystérieuse) is the tenth volume of The Adventures of Tintin, the comics series by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. The story was serialised daily in Le Soir, Belgium’s leading francophone newspaper, from October 1941 to May 1942 amidst the German occupation of Belgium during World War II. The story tells of young Belgian reporter Tintin, who travels with his dog Snowy and friend Captain Haddock aboard a scientific expedition to the Arctic Ocean on an international race to find a meteorite that has fallen to the Earth.

– courtesy of Wikipedia

The finished model:

The Video:

The story:

As Tintin albums go, The Shooting Star is probably the one with my second favourite cover (Sorry, nothing comes close to The Blue Lotus!). I’m not entirely sure why, but there’s just something about that massive white/red mushroom that just grabs my attention.

Of course, it’s also the album with perhaps my least favourite English translated name – what’s wrong with The Mysterious Star?!

Thankfully, I also really like the story. It starts off a bit odd, with all the “end of the world” shenanigans – but who could really blame Hergé for that? Having just begun living under Nazi occupation in Belgium during WWII, it seems like a natural reaction honestly. However, it does mark a turning point in Tintin’s adventures. No longer just an annotated travel log, now we’re talking about adventure on the high seas!

Of course, I’ve got plans for the ship, the Aurora, to hold place of pride in my Tintin build project, but that’s going to be a much bigger and more time-consuming project.  However the little yellow F.E.R.S. sea plane, that’s a whole different story. As Tintin fans will know, F.E.R.S. is a French acronym which stands for ‘Fonds européen de recherches scientifique’ (European Foundation for Scientific Research). And as people who follow my blog closely will probably notice, I have a great love of float planes. There’s just something more exotic and adventurous about a plane that takes off and lands on water.

I know I’m not the only Tintin fan either – this little yellow plane is probably one of the most often built Tintin projects. In fact, according to the Tintin Fandom wiki:

The seaplane pilot who flies Tintin to the meteorite and back is nameless, but after WWII he featured in a number of text articles in the newly-launched Tintin magazine. In these articles, Tintin would “interview” the pilot and Captain Haddock on technical details concerning aircraft and ships, from models to full-scale versions. The questions in the interviews were based on readers’ letters. The technical aspects of balloons and planes were explained by the seaplane pilot who was given the name Major Wings and often lapsed into English. The rank of Major would imply an American USAF commission — which would be odd for a European-based expedition — but it might be noted that continental writers have often given Army ranks to officers of the British RAF regardless of the fact that it does not use such a system. The comic book hero Colonel Clifton, who is retired from the RAF, is an example of this — his proper rank would be that of Group Captain.

The build:

I chose this build as an opportunity to “re-ignite” my passion for model building. Well, that might not be quite accurate – the passion never really left. It’s just that, on top of the never-ending COVID-19 pandemic, I’ve also recently experienced a difficult time in my career, with a huge ramp up in responsibility, work load, and the stress that comes with it. That made it very difficult for me to find time to relax at the modelling bench for a while. However, I realized that I needed to make some time to relax and sitting at the bench is usually the best place for me to gather my thoughts and leave some of the stress behind.

Despite the fact that I had several projects on the go when I hit the pause button, I decided the easiest thing to do to find my rhythm again was just to start something new. I find it much easier to just start on a new (and relatively simple) project than trying to figure out where I left off before. I know I’ll get back to those other projects eventually, but not until I’m back in the groove.

So, looking at my stash for inspiration, the Arado Ar 196 seemed seemed to jump out as the perfect candidate. It’s a relatively simple kit, and given that it’s based on a cartoon, I don’t really feel the need to do things like rescribe raised panel lines, or add minute details.

The biggest thing that needed doing was adding a second seat (and some more flooring) to the cockpit. That was easily accomplished using a bit of polystyrene sheeting and scrounging through the spares box for another seat. Then I painted the entire cockpit Red Brown (XF-64) interior… ’cause that’s how Hergé drew it. I did hold out for XF-63 (German Grey) for the control panel as a nod to the Arado’s German heritage.

After that the build was relatively uneventful. One handy tip that I’ve learned is that if you want to paint something yellow (in this case X-6 Lemon Yellow), paint it Pink (X-17) first. It’s a bit counterintuitive, but it really does work. Two quick coats of pink saves endless coats of yellow.

One thing that was a bit of a challenge was pre-painting the struts and the canopy frame black (Tamiya XF-01) before assembly. I made sure that there was no paint on the attach points, but it doesn’t seem to matter – I can never seem to get pre-painted pieces glued on without some mishap. They just never seem to go on as smoothly as I expect. Oh, well. Maybe I just need more practice.

I did need a few paint touch ups here and there, but I didn’t really get crazy with it. There’s a few small imperfections, but that just adds character, right? Even my final coat of Future came out a bit blotchy, but oh, well. I was still able to get the F.E.R.S. markings on with no problem. I should say that the Blue Rider decals did make putting on the markings a breeze.

All in all, this was a build to get me back in the game, so mission accomplished on that end. But check it out and leave me a comment to tell me what you think:

THE TAMIYA PAINT :

• XF-1 (Black) – Struts and Canopy
• XF-16 (Flat Aluminum ) – Engine Cowling and Antennas
• XF-63 (German Grey) – Control Panel
• XF-64 (Red Brown) – Cockpit Interior
• X-6 (Lemon Yellow) – Main Fuselage
• X-17 (Pink) Main underlay