Oh I’ve spent too long painting shades of gray. So you know this one won’t be like the other Hunters that have come before me I showed this pic of Miss Demeanour to my son last year and he ended up finding this Revell 1/32 Hawker Hunter FGA9 that should do just fine for Miss Demeanour, 99% of which will be built out of the box.
…and what she’ll look like hopefully…
Photo from Heritage Aviation website
The beautiful paint scheme is based on reentry, starting from the white hot point of the nose, through the changing color of flames wrapping around the reentry vehicle and cascading back as if you were looking up into the sky and then into the stars. A literal explosion of colors. Just the perfect build to start the new year.
Off we go with the classic cockpit start. So setting expectations here, this will be all about the paint scheme! The rest will be OOB so I won’t throw many in progress pics in here until then. I’ve got some ideas on how to do the paint fade which should be worth a few pics.
and the almost never to be seen again IP
Really the IP is fairly detailed for the standard kit part. Lots of little detail to pull out and show off. I picked out key items with the brush to draw your eye although alot of this will be shadowed once it’s in the fuselage. There are a few pics of Flapjack flying with the canopy open at air shows so I think that will be the scene I set so this is visible. Oh, and as it turns out the project I’m finishing up now is the Prince of Wales battleship and one of the signal flags matches the patch on Flapjack’s shoulder, almost a perfect fit!
I’m excited about it as well. This will be my 1st Kinetic kit. A couple years back i kept returning to their table at the Chattenooga NATS because i thought the sprues looked so good. Will plan on starting it after the Hunter is done, maybe early March.
Your cockpit progress is looking great, especially the pilot’s helmet. Terrific plan for the paint scheme. This kit got very favorable reviews when it first came out.
That’s a fantastic job on the cockpit, Mongoose. I saw this beautiful bird at a display at Duxford (I think) some years back, and the paint job drew a lot of admiring comments, including from me - I look forward to seeing this one come together.
I just checked, Mongoose - it was Duxford in 2011, the airshow was dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the Spitfire’s first flight. I have a few photos I could post, if you like?
oh absolutely! Would love To see them. I’ve got a lot of fond memories of going to the airshows with my dad. That’s a got me into aircraft. And he took me because I was building models and thought it would be cool. I have a spit in the stash maybe it’ll be a future pose with this baby
Superb pics Hutch! That 2nd aerial pic is really gonna be helpful. I can see transitions between colors there really well. Must be the way the light was hitting it when you got the shot. Thanks!
Tonight i have the fuse assembled and the wings on. I have to say Revelogram did great with the fit on this model. So far minimal filler, and even that has been all perfect plastic putty. I sprayed some vibrant yellow behind the jet intake strakes and we’re off to the air show.
still more sanding to do on the belly. The plastic near the join to the cockpit area is really weak as others have pointed out. Needed to get it all glued before final gluing and sanding of the fuselage halves there.
a little clean up of the ppp once it dries and this will be so smooth. My big goal is full primer by the weekend.
Whoa! She’s a big bird! That yellow looks great - can’t wait to see the finished build. I believe you’ll pull it off and it will be a masterpiece no doubt.
keavdog and Tom thanks, I won’t let you down [8-|]
So nothing major but a couple funny bits i thought worth posting…
how many times do you want weighted wheels? I know, almost always right! But do they come in the kit, no so I’m doing a takeoff, no worries right, they never put weighted wheels in the kit, hell I’ve spent more than $100 on weighted wheels BUT NO, Revell has the glamorous idea of putting weighted wheels in this kit! WTH at any other time I’d be singing their praises but they won’t work for this scene
where’s the miliput?
ok now the one worthy of a photo, 2 different sets of drop tanks in the kit but are either of them the ones on Miss Demeanour - NOOOOO
does the LHS have the right diameter styrene, NOOOOOO
does the LHS have the right diameter brass tube, NOOOOOO
more scratch building this is the fun part. So, I’d say modify my intent at this point, t’s less out of the box and more ‘no aftermarket’
I locked my calipers on the od of the brass tubing i had! 19/32”, then used the sharp edge as a sort of scriber and scribed the location on the smaller diameter wing tanks that would match the brass tube diameter. Out with the razor saw and voilà there you have it! I’m using the Flexy 5k CA to hold it together, hoping since it is not as brittle that they won’t break apart. My bondo and sanding phase should prove this out. If it doesn’t break then it’s good to go
primer shortly I think. Stop back in and check it out!
On the road for a few days but was determined to get some primer on before i left! I’m gonna call it 97% right. 3 small areas to work on - the starboard aerleron underneath, the gun shell ejection chute plugs i made and one area on the belly where i deleted one of the antenna mounts. Not too bad.
put the 1st coat of bondo on the tanks
and extended the main gear to make them weightless. I went just over double the length of the shaft to 8mm
Lots of sanding, bondo, and waiting while working on the drop tanks tonight. Did the 1st round of clean up on joints that didn’t look right after primer. Just a few more minor touchups to do, then finish mocking up the landing gear, and then paint. While waiting for different parts to dry I made up one of my Tamiya 1/32 stands and rigged up a vertical stand for a lazy susan in my paint booth so I’d be able to spin the plane while painting this scheme.
Lots of little stuff happening of course. Painting up the gear, setting up the paint booth, tons of work on the custom drop tanks (can’t wait to show these), and creating the graphics.
copy and paste by row on this one, 42 star bursts to the row for the little ones. Those are about the limit of the Silhouette I have, about 1mm, maybe 1-1/4 from tip to tip. My plan is to place these on the white I’ve laid down to start with. I used lacquer for what I’m calling the undercoat, that way I can tape it up right away and not worry about it peeling or anything else funky.
Now check out these colors!! I should have the blue and maybe 2 out of 3 yellows on this weekend. I’ll be doing multicolor primers to help change the paint tones throughout the fade.
For those of you reading the bottles Miss Demeanor is essentially going to be a Pony Car haha almost all of these are Mustang or Camaro colors from the 60’s!
This morning I finished up all the lacquer on the aircraft itself. The wing tanks needed another coat of white so they are out of sequence for now lol
applied all the shining star masks over the insignia white
then the primer fade - white to gray to hazy black to solid black
and then to the paint booth
im really glad i opted for grey over most of the white. The transition would have been to stark otherwise.
next to last was plucking all the stars back off the sky!
and last was flicking distant stars onto the night sky with a toothbrush. WetSanded with 3000 grit paper. Some clear coat and it’s ready to dry for a day before i start the enamel colors.
Today saw the 1st coat of enamel in play. Looking at this 1st pic, up close, i may have to be a little closer when i spray. Seems just a little grainy, like it’s drying before it hits the surface. Fortunately enamels love wet sanding lol
you can’t really see the fade well in these pics. I applied more coats as I went away from the nose. The poster tac is helping keep a straight line from forming. I had tried just loose paper on the wings and i still got a line at the edge of the blue that was pretty sharp. This looks like it’ll work.
and here’s her hat to keep the dust out of the enamel for 4hours till it drives to the touch.
I showed this pic of Miss Demeanour to my son last year and he ended up finding this Revell 1/32 Hawker Hunter FGA9 that should do just fine for Miss Demeanour, 99% of which will be built out of the box.
so I’m doing a takeoff, no worries right, they never put weighted wheels in the kit, hell I’ve spent more than $100 on weighted wheels BUT NO, Revell has the glamorous idea of putting weighted wheels in this kit! WTH at any other time I’d be singing their praises but they won’t work for this scene
this is the fun part. So, I’d say modify my intent at this point, t’s less out of the box and more ‘no aftermarket’ 
