Things started full of anticipation of everything going as planned - then fate stepped in………
I decided to pay the leading edges of the wings.
The old Airfix call-out states silver, which I felt was too bright. I considered Tamiya Metallic Grey but that’s probably too dark so the happy medium which I had was Tamiya Flat Aluminium.
I got some tape and de-tacked it as much as I could before it wouldn’t stick thinking it would be good to make off the leading edges.
The masking itself was pretty straight forward as was applying the Flat Aluminium in light coats - although I forgot to paint the stabilators and realised half way through cleaning the airbrush. Once I applied the paint to them, the airbrush was cleaned again.
Then I started to remove the making. First the tail fins - ok but a small bit of red and some grey came off the inner face of the port fin - no real problem there.
The stabilators were next - no issues at all - great.
Then I remove the main wing masking.
As you might have guessed already, more paint came away with the tape due to that damned primer.
It wasn’t just the upper surfaces either
So, after a little rant and half a vision of throwing the Tomcat across the room (which, thankfully I didn’t), I calmed down and got the Tamiya Meduim Sea Grey out and touched in the bare plastic with a fine point brush.
Once that had dried sufficiently, the top colour coat was also touched in as was the red fin tip.
Gingerly, the Tomcat was placed upside down on the bigger of my 3D printed stands and I painted over the grey areas with the Off White. The patch in the middle of the wing needs another coat and maybe a light sand when it’s dry to even it out a bit.
Once the Tomcat was again the right way up on the stand, and the paint is drying, it doesn’t look overly bad. It’s noticeable as it’s brush painted as opposed the airbushed surrounding areas but with a very light sand with the highest/finest grit wet/dry, it will hopefully blend in further once the matt varnish goes on.
That now gave me an issue to think about.
The anti glare panel needs adding, but I daren’t mask the nose section up as it’s probably the first area that the eye gets drawn to.
Hmmm.
I then remembered that Italeri use decals for the anti glare panel and there is a spare in the box from the extra pair of Tomcats I bought.
The issue is that it’s the one that goes right to the point of the nose whereas the one I’m after needs to be shorter and rounded at the front.
So, I’ll search the internet for an image and print my own on clear decal paper.
The IRIAF Tomcat has that decal already applied, but if if weren’t for the primer issue, I’d cut a mask - it as said earlier, it’s not worth the risk.