Sense of motion

I have seen examples where clever modellers have created an illusion of rotation of planes' propellers by using perspex circles, photo-etched discs or blurred circles printed on sheets of acetate.

Trouble is, the material that they use is far too thick for 1/700 planes. Then I stumbled on one where a fellow had used discs cut from 'crinkly' plastic. This could work, but what to use? I considered cutting discs with a hole punch from some book covering plastic that I have, but I reckon it will be too floppy.

Then, a eureka moment.

My wife has a new lego kit with several plastic bags containing the pieces for each step. The plastic is thin enough to use on the small planes, but stiff enough to remain rigid and has a bit of 'crinkle', which should add to the illusion of motion.

Worth a go.

Ready for take-off: an undercoated Aichi E13A 'Jake' floatplane beside the undercoated Shokaku. Three streaks of diluted Payne's grey paint sufficed to create blurred propellers.

The disc is a bit wobbly from the front, when zoomed in by the camera, but it's not detectable by the naked eye.

I am happy enough with this n=1 example and will try it on some more planes soon. The disc is perhaps a bit big, so I could trim it by hand, since an imperfect circle shouldn't be noticeable at the scale. I won't bother for planes of this size or bigger, but may be need to for smaller planes like the Zeros.