Hello all. Below is my first venture into 1/72 jets. This one’s been done for a few weeks - but I just got around to taking pics. (A beautiful sunny day today). She’s built pretty much out of the box - with the exception of a tracheotomy operation that I had to perform. The kit had a wall in the intake that would have been obvious if I hadn’t cut it out and replaced it with an intake tube made of thin styrene sheet. All in all it was a surprisingly easy operation. I think it looks alot better than a black wall. And now she can breathe !
The kit was a good one that fit together with few hassles. It was a good thing it came with 4 different decal options - I messed up placement of the first set and had to strip them off and replace them with this scheme. This project also reinforced my dislike for painting white - what a pain in the neck.
Hope you enjoy,
Chris
Nicely done Chris [tup]. Thanks for sharing.
Regards, Rick
A little too “clean” for me. [:-^] Just kidding. I am a firm believer in build it the way YOU want it.
It appears that you did a pretty good job on the trache! And the rest of the model, for that matter.
I was actually gonna make this same kit my “first jet”, too.
That is, until I traded it for something… special. [:-^]
But you made it look awesome- good job, sir!
Nice work on the SLUFF. The edges of the weapons are a bit thick, but if that is the way they come in the kit, it is difficult to fix the situation.
Darwin, O.F. [alien]
Looks real nice. Good work on the decals, the marking look painted on.
If I a painting large areas of white I use Rust-Oleum Specialty Plastic Primer, in a green spray can. Decant it through a straw into a cup, let it “de-gas” and spray with the AB. Great coverage adheres really well and is just a hair less stark white than some of the others, but not a “gray”. And its the perfect base for yellow… the other “dreaded” color.
[#ditto] on the decals, looks great from here!
Thanks for all the nice comments and constructive criticisms guys. I appreciate it.
Randie, personally - I like to see really weathered birds too. Compared to the photos I’ve seen, most modellers don’t come close to the amount of grunge and wear that the real ones see. I’m still learning how to weather. I thought I might ruin this one if I tried to weather it - the base colors are so light.
I won’t admit to being intimidated - I’ll just say I like the clean, rather flashy paint scheme.
One thing I found with this kit that would make it difficult to weather is that the recessed panel lines are not very consistent. I think it would be tough to get a wash to look good. The wing pylons and some other locations have very wide recessed lines, but most of the the fuselage has medium to fine lines that wound up getting even finer after a spray can coating of Tamiya white. On the underside - some of the panel lines were lost with the combination of spray coating and seamline sanding. I re-scribed some of them. Except for the white - everything else is brush painted.
Darwin, Looking at closeup photos like these - I agree, the fins look really thick. I probably could’ve sanded those down a bit.
Marc, Thanks for the Rust-O-leum tip. I haven’t used an airbrush yet - but I have one… I’m thinking that’s probably the only way to get an opaque white coating that is thin enough so that I don’t lose surface detail.
Rick, Frank, & Mike, Thanks - I was psyched about the way the decals came out too.
Chris