Scratchbuilt 1/72 Santos Dumont 14bis

From the archives (2007):

Oh, the flair and charm of the combination of French and Brazilian blood.
Monsieur Santos Dumont does not need introduction to the aviation world, and his well renowned 14 bis is a familiar –although somewhat awkward- sight.
This box kite-based pusher canard design left the earth in 1906 after some tests and adjustments, much to the delight of the crowd at Bagatelle.
Stoically standing at his piloting post with unmovable face, Santos Dumont made a place for himself in history.
A relatively large model in 1/72 with some attractive detail, this one is not a difficult one to try.
As usual, much to the delight of the scratch-builder, references differ from each other and also the plane went trough a few modifications.
The images will provide a clue of the building sequence, materials and sub-assemblies. The only detail probably worth to mention is the “wicker gondola”, made of double-sided, wicker-pattern printed paper. In the original plane, this was a remnant of Santos-Dumont previous experiences with dirigibles.
The plane was propelled by a Levavasseur Antoinette-type engine, which I replicated.
This pusher canard had at the front end a sort of omni-directional moving surface, in order to achieve control.
Acrylics were airbrushed over a colored pencil-marked surface in order to convey some “depth” and the illusion of translucence. Metal details were picked up in enamel using a fine point “Pilot” metallic marker.
A little decal was custom made in the house printer for the only marks on the side of the fuselage,
I tried to convey the glamour of the era tweaking some photos a little with an image-processing application.
Get a moustache, a bamboo cane and go to the nearest park to get inspired.

To say Ooh La La to a passing beauty may help.