Alex_110

Very nice indeed, great photography too.

I've got a Mistercraft Hunter on the bench at the moment, so I know the struggle. I can only hope I can get the quality up to half of yours, fantastic job!

Brilliant work, haven't seen a diorama like that before - is that a tiny box of mountain dew I see?

This one was built OOB with the exception of a little wire to detail the engine, and some fishing line for the antenna. Not the easiest kit to build as many of you will know, but with a little work I think it gives a nice representation of the 190. Sorry the pics aren't great, I'll work out how to do photography someday, I promise.

Unfortunatly I haven't got any on me. Thanks for the suggestion though, I'll keep it in mind for the next time I attempt a NMF. After some more experiments, sandwiching the decal between layers of Super Clear III seems to work responsibly well without affecting the Alclad's sheen too much, so I might just do that to the whole model. It was only meant to be a weekend build after all.

So I've been having my first go with Alclad on a little Airfix 1/72 Sabre I've had lying around for years. All's gone well, the polished aluminium looks great - but inevitably there's a problem: The Airfix decals are particularly matt, and it's very obvious where the film is once the decals is down on the Alclad. I was able to trim the larger decals such as the USAF lettering, but this technique isn't really feasible with some of the other decals still to go on - such as the checkerboard tail or the "Little Rita" lettering. I've tried applying a little gloss over a smaller one, but that doesn't really help blend it in to the Alclad either. If you guys have got any tips for alleviating this problem they'd be much appreciated - pic below of the scheme in question.

Wow, that rigging must have been a pain in the bottom. Beautiful result though!

That's some great work, I'm loving that engine detail.

Absolutely stunning, it would be very easy to mistake it for the real thing.

Hi all, this is my F4U-1A that I built for the current Corsair GB. Built OOB, Gunze acrylics for the paint and the kit supplied decals were used. As I'm sure you all know these Tamiya kits really come together effortlessly. Anyway, a few pics:

Vought Corsair F4U-1A VF-17, No.1 "BIG HOG" Lt. Cdr. John T. "Tommy" Blackburn Ondonga, Nov 1943

Well you made quick work of that, and with a great result too.

Well that's another one finished up, I'll throw some more pics up in the gallery and RFI. Fun builds these Tamiya kits.

Decals on and a quick wash done. I had some real trouble with getting a nice coat of gloss varnish down this time. I use Vallejo's stuff that comes in 60ml bottles - usually it works fine, but it was refusing to give anything more than a satin coat this time. Ended up having to spray it down much thicker than I would like, so if any of you guys have got suggestions for an idiot-proof gloss varnish, I'd love to hear. One side effect of the heavy coats was that the paint on the canopy frame peeled up slightly along the edges when I was removing the mask, though that shouldn't be too hard to clean up with a blade. Anyway, next up I'll be attempting some chipping with a Prismacolor pencil - hopefully it'll look half decent this time - and I'll be getting the landing gear sorted. And after that I think I'll be calling this one done.

That propeller looks very good, how did you go about bending it?

That's damn near perfect, great work.

Time for some updates. So the Corsair is now painted. The colours in the photos aren't 100% accurate due to the bad lighting, so I'll make sure to remedy that next time I upload. Now it's time for a nice gloss coat for the decals, then another coat on top of them in preparation for some messing around with oil washes.

Well I truly screwed up today. Got the white underside sprayed nicely and masked it off for the intermediate blue. Moved onto spraying that and I thought all was going well... until I pulled up a picture of someone else's build to compare mine against, and to my horror realised I'd sprayed the Navy Blue in place of the Intermediate Blue. How I managed to not realise this sooner is beyond me. Looks like re-priming and redoing my preshading will be tomorrows task, and then maybe I'll spray the correct blue

Real nice result, to my shame I must admit I'd never heard of these Super Corsair's before your build. Like the other guys have said those exhausts really do look great, you've got to admire someone who will bleed for their work.

Bit more progress. Fuselage all primed up, and I've done a bit of work on the engine. Added a bit of wire I stripped from a pair of dead earphones to it - not the most accurate job, but it at least adds a bit of interest to the radial.

Winter camos are always some of the most interesting, and that weathering really is spot on. A great result.

A little more progress today, fuselage together and wings attached. I think I'll be leaving the flaps off until I get the basic camouflage down.

Right, finally time to get the ball rolling on this build. Cockpit is more or less done at his point, I'll be getting the fuselage together later and then work will start on making any seems disappear (I hope). Not such a fan of the seat-belt decal in retrospect, think I'll pick up a PE one when I get around to doing one of Tamiya's Zero's. I think I went a bit heavy with the weathering around the headrest as well, but hopefully that won't be too noticeable under a canopy.

I'd say your technique captures the desired look perfectly, great job there!

Those additions certainly come together to make a wonderful looking model, great job.