Hi folks. After September when this kit was about 50% completed I packed everything up and took a break from model building. I dusted this kit off in the middle of January and finished her off. It’s the Hasegawa F/A-18F with decals for VFA-102 Diamondbacks 50th Anniversary from Two Bobs.
The kit went together precisely with very little filling or sanding. It came with the new Diamondbacks decals but I liked the 50th Ann. scheme better. These particular decals were terrible, by the way. They cracked several times. I would not reccommend them. The AGM-88s are from the Hasegawa weapons set and the AIM-120s and the AIM-9Ms are from a different kit.
My photo studio is my dining room table so you’ll have to forgive the lack of proffesional pics. Here they are. Thanks for looking.
Excellent work on your Hornet, that scheme is one of the most colorful I have seen! I forgot about the glow-in-the-dark paint on your Harrier, could you elaborate on the paint you used?
Thanks for the comments guys. I’ll get some pics with the canopy open when I finish it. I’m just being too lazy to get it done. Maybe tonight.
The glow in the dark paint for the formation lights works really good. In normal light the color of the paint is just about exactly the color of the formation lights when they’re off. It’s very convincing. To get the glow effect you have to shine a bright light onto the paint fo a few seconds and it and the paint will glow for a few minutes. It looks really cool when it does and it lets you take some good pictures. The main drawback it that the paint is not flush with the model. It sits up a little bit.
Caution: As I worked with the paint I learned a few things. First, I had to brush it on in about 3 to 4 layers. It tends to dry very thin. Make sure that you paint it on evenly so you don’t get high and low spots. Second, I cut the paint along the edges of the masking tape that defined the formation light. If the paint is overlapping the tape you will peel off the paint when you remove the tape! Third, I mixed/thinned the paint with Future. This allows the paint to stick to the model better. Otherwise it can peel off fairly easily. I just used a few drops of Future to thin out half a bottle cap of paint.
I like colors. I built one a while back when it was first released. A lot of work but the end result is nice. My super bug doesn’t look quite as good as yours though. Good job.
One of the most striking colour schemes i have seen. I remember the Super Hornet at Avalon Airshow, i think 2005, maybe it was 2007, had this scheme and it was a real eye catcher. You have done it justice in every way! Great work!
Boomerang, it must have been 2005 when you saw this ship. She was only painted like that for one year, I believe. The squadron was assigned to the USS Kitty Hawk and their home port was Naval Air Facility Atsugi in Japan. This particular plane did a few airshows in the western Pacific area. I don’t know if she ever came to the states. You’re lucky you got to see it in person.
B-17pilot, the lights are definitely worth a shot. And one of the nice things is that they are fairly easy to peel off. So if you don’t like them or if you goof them up you can just remove them and try it again. Also, you can either use one of those .005 Prismacolor pens to draw in the frames around the lights or you can cut them out of the formation light decals. Just remember to gloss over the glow paint first.
