Global Scale Modeller

Put a light coat of gray around the bottoms of the tires for some road wear.



Dull Cote took the shine off the missile decals purdy good.



Before weathering for reference.



Dirtied it up with some burnt umber and ocre washes. It doesn't look like much but that's about six wash applications. Mixed up turpenoid and oil paints very thin, applied and let it dry for an hour. Rub down with a lintless cloth removing 65% of it, and did it again and again.



Added a little oil streak coming from a panel on the wing. At first, I put down two parallel Post Its so the weathering powder would go straight back. I've had problems in the past (see the underside of the wing, which was my first experiment) with the streak going off center.

But the edges were too perfect. So I put a few tiny dots of black oil paint at the head and gently feathered them back with turpenoid.







Bottom. Sandy dirt streaks behind the tires.



Also mixed up a batch of dull cote, lacquer thinner and a few drops of light gray and sprayed all of the decals to make them less white and pristine.

Finally standing on her own three feet. I spent an hour dirtying up the wheel wells and accenting the dirt streaks on the underside, I may decide to dirty up the wheel rims too.

They've already been hit with a black wash way back when but they're a tad too pristine for me.

Note to self: Dry fit landing gear before deciding where to place dirt streaks.

The dirt streaks look much more pronounced in these photos than to the eye. I may soften that up a bit.

Nice weathering.

Not enough "oohs" and "ahhs" in my reserves for this, great work so far.

Getting close now.

Added small struts to the rear landing gear, target and navigation pods and the JDAM GBU-31 2000 pounder. Added some dust to the wheel rims.





The ordnance sway braces are attached, and the drop tanks to the pylons.

I spent the evening loadin' up the weapons. We are almost done. I need some cleanup here and there and to attach small antenna masts I left for the end. Then were off to the light tent!



The Hasegawa aftermarket weapons didn't line up well (or at all) with the Revell pins and holes for mounting, so I had to modify them as necessary. They don't all align perfectly, but I did the best I could. Not sure if there was something else I could have done.



Here, I've attached the drop tanks and air-to-air missiles.





The engines are mounted too!



The canopy is at long last unmasked. Not perfect, but pretty good. Needs some cleanup.

Beautiful payload.

Spent some time rigging up the light tent with the dual 105w units from above and two 65w units from each side. I stole one of my son's mic stands to mount them. Shhhh....



Then a few quick snaps because I couldn't resist temptation. Not done yet, however.



See how the light reflects from the bottom edge of the canopy? Looks terrible. Although I learned it too late, there's a trick to eliminate that. Simply take a black marker and run it around the edges where the canopy will mate with the model... reflections disappear.

The canopy is a tad messy. It's only held on with PVA (white glue)... I may pop it off and try to clean it up. Worried about tempting fate, however.

That´s a handy phot box. Nice job mate!

Bissyboat wrote:That´s a handy phot box. Nice job mate!

Thanks. I boxed in the upper lights with more foam board to reflect the light downward (hopefully). I have the room to leave it up and I figure that if I don't have to set it up every time I wanna use it, I'll use it a lot more.

But I have to put this thing to bed already, I very nearly had a catastrophe tonight. In all of the handling getting the weapons on, etc at this late stage, I managed to dislodge a decal near the canopy. Frankly, I'm sick to death of all the decals... but with all of the weathering and overcoats, it left a spot that stood out in stark contrast.

Okay, so I find a spare in the kit, attach it, and realize I need to make it match the others by knocking down the color. So I mix up another small batch of dull cote with a drop of gray in it and start to airbrush it on. I pull the trigger, begin my motion, and in the last split second realize that the canopy is no longer masked and I was about to pass the brush right over it. Whew!

So tomorrow, light tent pics and then that's it, off to the display case.

mis-post

jmatt wrote:

Bissyboat wrote:That´s a handy phot box. Nice job mate!

Thanks. I boxed in the upper lights with more foam board to reflect the light downward (hopefully). I have the room to leave it up and I figure that if I don't have to set it up every time I wanna use it, I'll use it a lot more.

But I have to put this thing to bed already, I very nearly had a catastrophe tonight. In all of the handling getting the weapons on, etc at this late stage, I managed to dislodge a decal near the canopy. Frankly, I'm sick to death of all the decals... but with all of the weathering and overcoats, it left a spot that stood out in stark contrast.

Okay, so I find a spare in the kit, attach it, and realize I need to make it match the others by knocking down the color. So I mix up another small batch of dull cote with a drop of gray in it and start to airbrush it on. I pull the trigger, begin my motion, and in the last split second realize that the canopy is no longer masked and I was about to pass the brush right over it. Whew!

So tomorrow, light tent pics and then that's it, off to the display case.

Oh no! How unfortunate. I really feel for you. Tiny decals are painful and frustrating. Unlucky with the canopy too. Aceton will clear that right off. It´s a shame to start over again. I do this all the time. My mind dwindels ever so often. I did something seriously foolish weeks ago. I had my cuppa and another cup to rinse my brushes. Little did I know as soon as I picked up the cup, whilst modelling, I got the one with paint, and before I could swallow this poisonious concoction, I literally spat it over the wall. On the shelves with my Airfix boats. Pieces came flying off from them and they were dripping wet. A nice royal mess.

Note to my self: If you´re having tea, don´t keep it on the workbench next to the paint tumblers.

Hope everything works out for you.

Alright, boys and girls, I'm ready to call this done.

Builder's Comments:

Well, I wanted a challenge and I found one. When I started in May, I never dreamed it could take this long. I wanted to build an aircraft OOB (out of the box) with no resin cockpits, etc. It's only my second build and I wanted it all old school.

I learned a lot and got some great experience. I made some mistakes and learned from them. Some of the decals are not that great, with air bubbles trapped underneath. I thought that the Micro-Sol solution, applied after the decal went on, would tighten up the decal and make the bubbles disappear. I thought wrong. But once it's on, that's it.

Compared to other military models, I can't imagine one with more detail to be achieved. When you do a tank, there's no underside to weather, no endless cockpit details, no intricate weapons with tons of facets to be masked and painted. And very few decals.

But since I took this up as a challenge, I left no stone unturned in trying to achieve a level of detail that will never really be seen as the thing sits on a shelf; things like the deep interior of the engine. Not satisfied with my early efforts, I did it three separate times, painting it anew and using a new method until I liked the result. And the cockpit can't even be seen unless up put you face six inches away.

For this build, that's okay. It was part of the point.

That said, it will be a long time until I do it again. If I am going to exert this much effort, it will be on things that can be seen.

I've had fun and am pretty satisfied with the outcome. Building a kit like this has been a dream of mine since I was twelve.

Thanks for all of the support along the way.

Bissyboat wrote:I did something seriously foolish weeks ago. I had my cuppa and another cup to rinse my brushes. Little did I know as soon as I picked up the cup, whilst modelling, I got the one with paint, and before I could swallow this poisonious concoction, I literally spat it over the wall. On the shelves with my Airfix boats. Pieces came flying off from them and they were dripping wet. A nice royal mess.

Ouch. Big time.

jmatt wrote:

Bissyboat wrote:I did something seriously foolish weeks ago. I had my cuppa and another cup to rinse my brushes. Little did I know as soon as I picked up the cup, whilst modelling, I got the one with paint, and before I could swallow this poisonious concoction, I literally spat it over the wall. On the shelves with my Airfix boats. Pieces came flying off from them and they were dripping wet. A nice royal mess.

Ouch. Big time.

Yes. I was spitting feathers, like it was no tomorrow. After two hours glueing marathon my builds were good as new(ish).

Ish is better than none.

Oh, also...

That looks amazing, simply wonderful job, sir. Paint looks sharp, the masking looks sharp...it's just...sharp! A+, man!

Lysus wrote:Oh, also...

That looks amazing, simply wonderful job, sir. Paint looks sharp, the masking looks sharp...it's just...sharp! A+, man!

Many thanks, Lysus.

But I'm open to hearing critiques, anything I could have done better? (and I know there's plenty) I'm here to learn.