Warpaint Books runs a numbered monograph series on aircraft, weighted towards British types and post-war aviation. Each volume carries a series number and treats one machine: its development, production versions, service with individual operators and its colour schemes. For a builder the series is most valuable on types where a continuous account is hard to find elsewhere - transports, trainers, helicopters and jet bombers among them. Volumes do not depend on one another, so they can be bought in any order, and the colour profile sections are the part most builders use first. Below we explain how to get the most out of the series.
Panavia Tornado ADV by Des Brennan
19.16 €
Sikorsky S-55/H19 Chickasaw & Westland Whirlwind by Adrian M. Balch
22.36 €
Convair B-36 'Peacemaker' by Kev Darling
18.36 €
Grumman HU-16 Albatross by Charles Stafrace
19.96 €
Bristol Bulldog by Ricard J Caruana
15.16 €
F-4K and F-4M Phantom by Steve Hazell
19.96 €
A typical book combines text on development and service with archive photographs and a series of colour profiles. The profiles are the most useful part in practice, showing how machines were finished in different periods and by different operators, export versions included. Because the series is numbered, it can be collected systematically, and volumes do not depend on one another, so they can be bought in any order.
Literature on the most modelled fighters is plentiful. Transport, liaison, training and reconnaissance aircraft are a different matter, and this series covers them methodically - including machines that flew for decades and passed through many operators, which means a great many finish options.
Post-war types add a complication: the same aircraft might have worn natural metal, grey low-visibility camouflage or a bright commemorative scheme. A monograph helps you settle which period you are modelling and, more importantly, keep its internal logic - a low-visibility machine also has subdued markings, while a fifties metal aircraft carries bold ones.
Many subjects here are bare metal or glossy, which shifts the work towards surface preparation. Any scratch or seam shows through a metallic finish, so sanding and polishing matter more than weathering.
For wartime subjects in similar depth see Kagero aircraft books, and for monographs from other publishers, reference books on real machines.
