1/72 Airfix McDonnell Douglas F15A Eagle [Starscream]

[antonowski]

Soooo after recently "finishing" the 1/48 'scmitt BF109e, I decided to crack on with a test piece for an eventual project I want to complete whilst I await funding for the rest of the BF109 dio....a Starscream liveried F15.

I'll be using the 1/72 Airfix starter kit for this, which as far as I know hasn't been changed since the 70s! (more moaning about this kit later).

So first steps are to have a look at the kit, gather some reference images and get to the first couple of stages of building! I work in the games industry and we use a program called "Pureref" to collate reference images together. It's free, so check it out on google and let me know what you think. You can make really huge boards of reference but I'll just be sharing 2 images here so you can get an idea of what I'm going for:




I'm still undecided on whether I want the blue nose cone, technically Starscream didn't have that in the cartoon sooooo something to consider.



Box art is fantastic as always from Airfix. In this case it's deceptively up to date (which the kit isn't). I won't be using the paints, decals or the glue for this build, but more brushes are always nice!





Next is onto the contents of the box, this is where I was a little disappointed. As stated previously I won't be using the paints, glue or decals that come with the kit so it's just the plastic I'm interested in....which in my opinion is the weakest part of this kit.





As this is a much older kit, we've got raised panel lines on the surfaces instead of the nice embossed details of modern Airfix kits. There's also a huuuuuuuuge amount of flash on each of the sprues with some of the smaller pieces being nearly obscured completely by it.





I know this is an older kit at this point, but with it being repackaged and sold at quite a hefty price when you compare it to other offerings of the F15 at this scale and even larger scales (I paid £25 for a 1/48 Tamiya F15-C, this retails £2 cheaper) I can't help but feel a little robbed. Hopefully the kit turns out ok but boy it's going to take some work!


I put together the air intakes (which I'll keep separate until painted) which were an absolute pig of a fit. After quite a bit of sanding it still wasn't anywhere near close so I decided to use Vallejo plastic putty on it when I was ready to gap fill the main fuselage.





Talking of the main fuselage, I assembled the cockpit and married the upper and lower fuselage together immediately as there isn't going to be much detail within the cockpit itself on this build.





The canopy assembly was also given a coat of Tamiya clear yellow at this point. I decided to cover all 3 clear parts with the first unused part being a bit of a test for the clear yellow. They turned out ok with a brush, but I'll probably use my airbrush next time...



I think masking these canopy parts might prove a little troublesome as the detail is really quite fine and not raised a huge amount.


Next thing I did was mask off the areas that were either going to be gap filled (like the wings joining the upper fuselage) or where I was going to be doing quite a bit of sanding. With the panel lines being raised on this model I can't afford to be that aggressive with my sanding. I then started to fill these areas with Vallejo plastic putty and a little water to smooth it out.





Next steps will be to continue filling gaps and waiting for it to completely cure overnight ready for sanding!


Cheers,
Ant

[antonowski]

Ahoy!

Mini update, I gap filled and sanded.....gap filled and sanded, and the kit still doesn't want to play nicely! Figured I've got it to an acceptable state now apart from the right hand side of the fuselage just under the canopy. I'll need to fill and sand that some more!






And here's the (repeat) offending area....




I've also managed to get the canopy masked off too. Those fine details were tricky to see and cut, so it's entirely possible I'll have to re-check these at some point before painting.




Next steps are a more basic paintjob on the cockpit. I'm thinking given the nature of the jet itself being some sentient being, the cockpit would be a singular colour. I'll still give it the wash and potentially a dry brush treatment, but I was also thinking about using some solder wire within the cockpit just for some visual interest.

Cheers,
Ant

[Garion77]

Ahoy!

Mini update, I gap filled and sanded.....gap filled and sanded, and the kit still doesn't want to play nicely! Figured I've got it to an acceptable state now apart from the right hand side of the fuselage just under the canopy. I'll need to fill and sand that some more!






And here's the (repeat) offending area....




I've also managed to get the canopy masked off too. Those fine details were tricky to see and cut, so it's entirely possible I'll have to re-check these at some point before painting.




Next steps are a more basic paintjob on the cockpit. I'm thinking given the nature of the jet itself being some sentient being, the cockpit would be a singular colour. I'll still give it the wash and potentially a dry brush treatment, but I was also thinking about using some solder wire within the cockpit just for some visual interest.

Cheers,
Ant

that's a huge gap to fill !! great job on it !

[antonowski]

Thanks for the kind words Francis, it's been a testing build so far!

On with another update!!! This time there's quite a bit to get through, so I'll keep the talking to a minimum and let the pictures do the talking.


I picked up where I left off by re-filling and attempting to level some of the gaps. At this point, the raised detail was starting to be worn away so I figured these might just be natural join lines for a Transforming jet?....

Anyway, here's a shot of the final round of acrylic putty amendments...


I also did eventually add in those wires into the cockpit and gave it a flat colour of sky grey from Vallejo. As the cockpit is glued with PVA I can always add more colours to this later.




After this had been done, I honestly just wanted to get straight to painting. Soooo, I did! I started by priming the whole model with Stynylrez Black surface primer in preparation for a technique I'd not tried before, marbling pre shading.






That last picture shows the second round with focus on lighter spots. Turned out pretty well I thought, so I loaded up the airbrush with Tamiya XF-80 and started to methodically cover the surface of the jet. I masked off the engine cowling section on the top side and underneath so I could utilise the black underlayer for the metallic surface.





Ignoring the awful job I've done of filling those gaps, I thought this turned out rather well for a first attempt at this technique. I love the colour differentiation on the surface and it matches the scale well.




Next step was to then reverse the mask and focus on the metallic engine cowling. A combination of post-it notes and tamiya tape for this one







I left a little space near the front of the mask for the metallic surface to "leak" through a little as if it had been worn away. The result was ok but I think I'll reverse the dark/light metallic shades next time. Next step was to mask off for the red coloured air intake covers. Initially I wanted to paint these separately to the rest of the fuselage but I attached them and here we are! Masking was a bit fiddly, especially the gap between the air intake and the fuselage...






Once these had been painted (I'll show this all soon, I promise!) I then proceeded to mask off the wings ready for the red and white striping seen on the reference. I also had masked off the nosecone ready for a darker grey. After spraying the white, I just masked off more of the gap before spraying the red...






And this is the result I have so far after removing all of the masking (and there was a LOT of it). I also painted little areas behind the intakes the same darker grey (vallejo sea grey) as the nose cone...




As you can see there's still bits of overspray here and there, so I'll be tidying those areas up before I paint and assemble some of the smaller parts (including the undercarriage, this model will be displayed "in flight") ready for a gloss varnish and decal pass.

I hope you've enjoyed the build so far, still lots to do so wish me luck!

[digger303]

Doing very well. What a awful seam line to fill.
I like the top coat color a lot.

[antonowski]

Thanks for the kind words! It feels like the kit has been fighting me all the way but if an old ill-fitting kit is the only thing I've got to complain about then I'm doing alright I reckon. Gives me change to try new things out at the very least.


So, not a huge amount done since the last update, but I have begun prepping the smaller parts for weathering. I've got the fuel tanks, horizontal and vertical stabilisers painted (still need some masking and painting for the verticals), and assembled the missile pylons to the tanks.

I've also painted the engine nozzles in Tamiya X-31 Titanium Gold (complete with a finger smudge, yay!)



One little thing I did experiment with was how to mount the tanks for painting. I used ice lolly craft sticks, drilling holes that match the diameter of the little tab connectors that are on the model...


Just dotting a little bit of paint on the model pins/connectors, I then just touched the craft stick to see where I needed to drill, then using a pin vise created 2 holes. This allowed the piece to sit flush as it would attached to the model, without the need for glue or blu tac getting in the way.




As you can see I did this for the vertical stabilisers as well, which were given an extremely light covering of black primer just so the French Blue from Vallejo Model Colors didn't appear so bright.



Decals are next, though I did try and create my own decals these did not work at all, so I suspect I'll have to create masks for the Decepticon symbols on the wings by hand. :/

That's all for now, I'll be back once the missile sets and decals are done and ready for weathering!

Cheers,
Ant