Hello everyone. I’ve been following the forums for a few months for advice and decided to join. I used to build cars mainly because I couldn’t get results I wanted with rattle cans on aircraft. This summer I finally decided to invest in a compressor and airbrush set up and have slowly been working my way up. I think I spent a whole week just mixing and painting scrap pieces and old kits before I started on a full build! I have also finally decided to start learning weathering, something I never did with cars, and have been getting good practice with old kits. Still working on filling seams though.
My first two 100% effort builds were Hasegawa’s 1/48 raptor which I got for 28 USD due to a mistake in pricing. And the second is tamiya’s 1/48 A-10. I have an iwata eclipse brush and some cheap chinese comp with moisture trap. The f22 was finished with mr color paints and their ‘super metallic’ additive to get the ‘sheen’ raptors have and still needs clear, decal and a slight wash. The A-10 is complete (just a few more details) and was done with tamiya paints. Let me know what you guys think! I will have more pictures soon! I look forward to learning and being apart of this forum! Thanks for looking!
Great work on those builds. Didn’t take you long to figure out the airbrush. Keep up the good work and keep posting those pics. Looks like a WWII fighter of some sort in the works on the mat.
Thanks for all the replies everyone. Much appreciated! Good to see other Virginians here. I live in Virginia Beach. Moved here with my parents, dad was an ADC and we were transferred from Atsugi Japan to Norfolk. He was with VFA-192 working on the f-18C’s and thats when I had most of my exposure to naval aviation as a kid. I have lots of memories walking around the hangars and even got to see the test cells a few times!
And Jim thanks! Its much more involved then I ever imagined! And yes I have a Corsair getting ready for base coat and a p-38 getting ready to be primed (not pictured). I will have more pictures soon!
First, welcome to the forums! Second…great work! They both are excellent builds, but the A-10 paint job rocks! Glad to have you on the forums and I look forward to seeing more of your builds!
haha thanks for all the greetings. I have quite a few projects going on at the moment and will try to share some pictures soon or maybe a work in progress thread. I may need some help in the near future but currently I’m finishing a p-38J for my fiances grandpa, he loves history and me and him love the story behind the p-38. I have started tamiyas f-16CJ which I’m doing mostly out of box aside from a brassin seat. The one pictured below is the one I’d like to find decals for. Also started an F-4E with some resin parts and will be getting a decals from VFA-151 circa 85 (aborad the midway)? Then getting an f-18E started for my dad which will receive va-115 decals (he was in 115 in the early 90’s when they were intruders). Next in line (still new in box) is an F-14D from vfa-31. Next purchase will be an f-18C from VFA-192. Anyway, I will have lots of pictures soon! Here’s a ocuple shots of the f-16 I took last year and is what I will be modeling after.
Thanks! Glad to hear that! I’ve always loved the F4’s and since my dad was aboard the midway in the late 80’s/early 90’s I decided to go with a midway based phantom. Also 151 was stationed on the base I grew up on, NAF Atsugi.
Here’s an update of some of the work. I think I will start a WIP thread since this is the ‘introducing’ section. Anyway heres a few pics of the aforementioned projects.
Here is the f-16 with the pit and gear bay installed. Flaps and the rest of the flight controls will be next followed by the rest of the externals. Also a shot of the nozzle that I’m trying to make as accurate as possible inside and out (still needs paint on the outer surface). Reference picture is included.
Here is the F-4E with pit installed with verlinden resin and misc cables. Steel wiring and stretched sprue were used as well.
Electrical bays cut out and installed. First time using resin! Learning curve is quite steep!
Resin seats by verliden. Again, very steep learning curve here.
P-38 base coated with pre and post shading. Made a mistake and did post shading before decals. So I will be repeating some of the areas.
Thanks! The inside of the nozzle was painted tamiya flat white and then a slight wash with a mix of raw umber and lamp black. Then using a very small ‘applicator’ I wiped a small amount of spirits radially. I wanted to get that roasted look to it. Next was oil pastels which I just dusted on to my finger tips and wiped radially. I guess you could call it dry finger brushing? This was done with dark brown, black and some silver. Color pencil was used for the striping and blended with a brush. Outer surface was a mix of stainless steel, aluminum, and exhaust MM metalizer and tamiyas gun metal. Really happy with the results although I might try and darken the outer surface a bit. Heres the finished product.
