B2 Spirit

Well, it was inevitable. Sooner or later, I was bound to build my first aircraft model, and even though I was resisting the idea for years, I knew for a long time what my first attempt would be. A B2 Spirit Test Article 0998 – a non-flying bomber used for research and development. This Article is at home in USAF Plant 44 in Palmdale, California.

It sports this chaotic, messy, and grimy finish, and I tried to replicate it as closely as possible. It’s a result of tests and experiments using different paint coats and their radar shielding capabilities. It’s used to this day for this very purpose, as well as maintenance training for mechanics, greatly reducing costs of keeping the real B2 bombers operational.

From the beginning, I wanted to display my aircraft in an unconventional way. You already know that I enjoy making old building facades and displaying them as 3D paintings on a wall, and I wanted to do the same with an airplane. A good half of my reference images for the paint scheme were actual screenshots from Google Earth, and this sealed the deal – the diorama would be displayed as a satellite image in a picture frame!

The title photo shows the diorama in its entirety and how it’s supposed to be looked at, the remaining photographs were taken outside under natural sunlight, creating those realistic, harsh shadows.