The "Night Raver" – Comedy Tamiya F-51D 1/48

[ambientdan]

Hey folks, this is my first real posting on here. I hope it goes OK...

What I'm doing is a complete flight of fantasy as a gift for a great friend of mine. I only took photos intermittently as work continued, but hopefully you'll get an idea. Had this kit for ages but only recently got back into actually building.

Cockpit:






So, what I'm hoping to achieve is a three colour disruptive pattern camo scheme with the name of the plane on the wings and yellow 'smiley' face markings on the fuse sides. There'll be some beating up going on later, so I wanted a metallic base for chippage (is that a word?)

Progress has been slow but steady...

Stage One: Vallejo grey primer (cause it's all I have, in fact I've used Vallejo Model Air throughout for the same reason)

Stage Two: Yellow patches on the sides then masked with frisk which was cut with a cheap circle cutter

Stage Three: Steel metallic on the upper wings, leading edges and front nose areas to form the base for the text on the wings and also to be chipped with a "hack away gently with a scalpel" method. I don't feel confident enough to use hairspray or any other techniques, so hopefully it'll work out

Stage Four: Fire up Adobe Illustrator and set some type for the wings (good old Helvetica Neue Heavy) and print it out on trusty inkjet



Then hand cut a mask, again using frisk film. I set the type really tight so I could lift it in one piece, saving me issues lining it up on the plane.

Stage Five: Black base for the camouflage



You can just see the frisk film there, doing it's masking thing like a good 'un

Stage Six: Lightest colour going down. Vallejo 109 PRU Blue



This patchiness was then covered with a thinned coat to blend

Stage Seven: Mask using Tamiya Tape and plain old masking tape for second and third colours, 111 USAF Blue and 005 Grey Blue (yes, yes, i've got the RAF set)





Stage Eight: De-masking to reveal my masterful handiwork! (ahem)





Stage Nine: Hand cut another mask for the black detail on the 'smiley" (You'll see it on the stage four pic) and admire the results! (ahem again)







Next up will be a few little touch-ups and then a gloss coat before a few kit decals and then some oil-dot filters, a Ultimate Dark Dirt wash and some other weathering

Many thanks for looking, hope you like it so far. Any comments and/or suggestions? Please fire away!

Cheers, Dan

[Damonkh]

Wonderful Job! Love the layering

[ambientdan]

Wonderful Job! Love the layering

Thanks Damon. Yeah, it took a certain amount of head-scratching to work out the order of paint/mask/paint, but turned out mostly to plan. So far anyway

[Avgas]

Brill! I love stuff out of the ordinary. I've seen a set of dragon scale stencils that look really cool, I would love to do a fast jet in pearlescent ones.

[ambientdan]

Brill! I love stuff out of the ordinary. I've seen a set of dragon scale stencils that look really cool, I would love to do a fast jet in pearlescent ones.

Thanks Avgas, appreciate it.

Yeah, I want to do a dinosaur-themed plane for my little nephew cause he's dino-mad. Will have a look for those stencils, they sound like a good way of doing it. And a pearl or crackle finished jet would look the biz. Do it, do it!

[Stokesy44]

Don't know what it is, but boy do I LIKE it! That is way cool Dude.

[Paul]

Great work

[ambientdan]

Don't know what it is, but boy do I LIKE it! That is way cool Dude.

I don't know either, it just seemed a good idea at the time

Great work

Thanks a lot, Paul

[Sturm]

Very well done buddy! I love that Camo, again great work!

[ambientdan]

Very well done buddy! I love that Camo, again great work!

Thank you very much, Sturm

It's great to get such positive feedback, really boosts the confidence, especially when you're just back to modelling and you know you have got so much to learn.

[ambientdan]

Hey folks, just finally got round to doing some more work on this project

Some decals are on, scavenged from various places, and here's my first ever attempt at some oil-dot weathering, using burnt umber, white, yellow, aquamarine

Starting....



Smooching the paint about a bit....



Here it looks kinda too grimy, but in reality its quite subtle



Think it looks OK, but of course, I've forgotten to do any chipping first, so I may have to revisit. Just spotted that big blue streak!!! Feck...





I'm hoping it will all tone down just a bit, still going to apply a Ultimate Dark Dirt wash in places, then add airbrushed staining...



Also working on props, comedy drop tanks and weaponry...



Anyhow, I hope you like it so far, thanks for looking

Cheers

Dan

[Willem]

Jeez. That's pretty damn cool.

[ambientdan]

So, it finally got finished and delivered to my mates as a present...

Where I suspected I would feck up, I certainly did. Totally corked up the chipping whilst a bit Jack Danieled and ended up having to cover my error with some spurious "battle damage". But hey-ho lesson learned, I guess. The whole thing's a flight of fantasy anyway

Finished with Ultimate dark dirt, drybrushing, some swearing, Vallejo Matt varnish and then pinned to a found base and an old 12" record from the collection













Thanks for looking

[Twokidsnosleep]

It is a great and unique build.
I am sure your pal loved it

[ambientdan]

Thanks very much, really appreciate it, Scott

He and his other half were delighted indeed, so that's what it's all about.

Plus learned a lot about the process and what not to do next time. Never learn anything if you don't mess up once in a while...

[Aeon]

Rad and eye catching!

[ambientdan]

Cheers Aeon, much appreciated