1:72 Lozenge 4 colors (vrchní i spodní)

Camouflage that was printed into the fabric

In the First World War the German air service came up with a solution that was decades ahead of its time. Instead of spraying the camouflage pattern onto a finished aircraft, it was printed straight into the covering fabric while it was still on the roll. The result was a carpet of irregular pentagons and hexagons known as lozenge. It saved hours of work for the painters, took weight off the machine and broke up the outline of the wing optically at a distance better than a continuous coat of paint.

The version with four colors was the more widespread one, and it came in two different palettes: a darker one for the view from above and a lighter one, tuned toward blue and violet tones, for the view from below. It is precisely both sets that you will find in this package, which consists of two sheets.

Applying the printed pattern

• Lay the pattern on in the areas between the ribs, not in one piece across the whole wing.
• Plan the cuts so that the joint falls on a rib or on an edge, where the eye does not look for it.
• Keep the direction of the hexagons the same on both halves of the wing; a part turned the wrong way is the most conspicuous mistake.
• Lay wide areas down wet and push the excess water out from the middle toward the edges.

Only over the finished pattern do the crosses and the personal markings come, and those are listed as separate items. What is in the package are the sheets, not an aircraft.

A historical note to close with: the printed fabric was not sewn in one piece but from strips, which were stretched side by side over the airframe. On period photographs it can therefore be seen that the pattern does not line up where the strips join and is sometimes even turned. A modeler who watches out for this small point will get a result closer to reality than one who tries for a perfect match of the hexagons over the whole area of the wing.