Well guys I finally finished this one. It only took a year and a half!
Like the title says its the 1/48 Hasegawa F-22A Raptor. I wanted to build an F-22 with the bays all closed up because I think the Raptor looks really good “clean.” Plus, they don’t sit there on the ramp with all the weapon bays open.
Also, I love to make 'em real dirty. I really like the look of weathered planes so I looked at photos of several F-22s and sort of combined all the dirtiness onto this model. In addition I added some various repainted panels and touch up spots that I saw in different photos. There are some filthy Raptors out there!
I added a bit of AM stuff like:
-Wolfpack resin exhaust nozzles
-Brassin resin wheels
-Aires resin cockpit
-Aires resin wheel wells (I only used the nose gear wheel well, though)
-Added wiring and hydraulic lines to the landing gear
Another masterpiece! I was just thinking the other day about when you were going to finish this build. Glad to see it completed. =] It was really does look great. You should get some better light on it…maybe even just outside natural light and film it. I think you have a lot of good color there that would show up better. Just a thought.
You’re completely right about the lighting. I took the pics in my kitchen sort of near a window. I really want to build my own light box or something like that. Honestly, I’m not very happy with the pics. It was the same thing with that F-15E that I built last year. It had really subtle weathering that I didn’t capture in the pics.
Or I could have my wife take them next time. She’s a professional photographer. Probably would have made sense, huh?
Shooooot! Get on that! lol The 30 min it’d take for her to get set up, film, and break down…you could have a bottle of wine popped and poured and a nice pasta ready to go! =] Just saying…a nice meal will get anybody up and moving. Plus a tasty bottle of wine…Shhhh********************t! I’d be all over that camera. =D
That is THE most realistic looking F-22 Raptor model I’ve ever seen. So very well detailed. You should take outdoor photos of it. I bet it would look like the real aircraft.
Thanks cnq! There’s some subtle weathering that isn’t really showing up in the pics. I’m gonna try to get some better ones.
Thanks Owl! I appreciate it!
Thanks Allan! I just used he colors that Hasegawa recommended in the instructions (I can post the colors later if you like…I’m not at home right now). All the colors were Mr Color mixes and were very easy to mix (all the ratios were 1:1). I added either white or black to the paint to get the fading and then used oils to create the dirtiness. The “Raptor Sheen” is really noticeable if you don’t weather the paint. I lost a lot of the sheen but I’m ok with that. The sheen on the real planes is not so noticeable when they are dirty. It pretty much looks the way I was hoping it would.
