[WWI] Hello & question about polish Spad XIII

[January Weiner]

Hello,

  I have been lurking on the wwi mailing list for some time now, time to
  say "Hello" :-)  My name is January, I work for the University of
  Muenster as a postdoc in bioinformatics, I come from Cracow, Poland, and
  I am by no means a `profi' when it comes to aircraft models, though I've
  made a few.  I did a dozen of WWI aircraft in my youth, Airfix and Revell
  mostly, but also a couple of tschech and russian models (e.g. a
  Bleriot).  I started making models again a couple of months ago, with a
  Fokker D VII, Kamov Black Shark (...well, it is a kind of a doppeldecker
  :-) ), Fairey Swordfisch and a Fairey Seafox from Matchbox, and a Spad
  VII from Airfix.

  WWI doppeldeckers have always been my fascination, and my dream is to
  build a remote-controlled, flying model of an Ilja Muromets and a Sopwith
  Triplane :-) ; however, I have neither money nor time for that.

  A couple of weeks ago I bought the Eduard 1/72 Spad XIII kit, and I
  intend to start it during this weekend.  I consider painting it in the
  colors of the polish airforce from 1920, the time of the polish-soviet
  war.  Therefore my first question -- where to get the apropriate
  camouflage patterns?  And one more general question -- is it possible to
  make your own decals?  If yes, how do you do it?  I do not mean the large
  insignia, but rather small letters / pictures.

  My other question considers the interesting color conversion tables
  Eduard put in the instruction set.  They advise to paint the cockpit
  using Humbrol 110 and 111, which is obviously wrong.  What Humbrol paint
  should I chose for the wooden parts of the cockpit?  What paint should I
  use for the "linen" color, visible between the wooden ribs on the inner
  side of the cockpit?

  Best regards,

  January

-- 
"His philosophy was a mixture of three famous schools -- the Cynics, the
Stoics and the Epicureans -- and summed up all three of them in his famous
phrase, 'You can't trust any bugger further than you can throw him, and
there's nothing you can do about it, so let's have a drink.' "