The IdolM@ster F-22 Raptor

[georgeusa]

A couple of years ago I picked up a 1/48 IdolMaster F-2A by Hasegawa to do for my niece. The WIP is here http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234943817-how-to-build-an-f-2a-and-lose-your-mancard/and the RFI is here http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234944706-how-to-build-an-f2-a-and-lose-your-mancard-is-finished/. It was quite enjoyable although very detailed regarding the decal scheme. I was following a link on Britmodeller the other day that took me to HLJ website. Since I was there, might as well cruise it (addicted people will take any excuse to use!) Lo and behold, HLJ had all of the IdolMaster kits on sale. I was weak, I was not strong; I was very bad. I got this kit, the Hasegawa 1/48 F-22 Raptor in the IdolMaster scheme.

I also somehow ordered all of these:

So, my purchases of Micro Sol and Set will be going up exponentially due to these kits. The main appeal for me is the decal schemes; they are very decal intense. Here are the instructions.

As you can see in the instructions, there are quite a few decals that have to be applied and in a certain order (that is never described in the instructions mind you) as some overlap others.

The decal sheets are quite large, about 14 inches long.

The parameters of the build are to get it done reasonably well, but the main focus is the end scheme of the plane. Obviously, I am not trying to get as accurate as I can F-22 Raptor. This is an anime portrayal of an actual aircraft, not the aircraft itself. With that said, upon opening the box, I am greeted with some lovely shades of plastic.

I have standard Hasegawa grey sprues, a very dark black/grey sprue, and multiple sprues with a fetching shade of hot pink. (I can’t wait to go to the LHS to try and match this color. They are used to me getting the drab WWII camo colors. Guess I will tell them I am doing a flaming PR spitfire!)

Since this is Hasegawa’s regular F-22 kit, the build starts with the cockpit. After freeing the parts I have a wonderful hue of plastic colors to work with.

And all the parts are assembled to dry and await a very dull black base color.

As the main cockpit dries, I begin work on the instrument panel and the six decals it gets.

After a few doses of setting solution, the decals snuggle into place.

Next up a base application of NATO black over the entire cockpit.

When the base coat dries, a drybrushing of metallic silver helps to bring out detail and give a little life back to the cockpit.

I have not decided if the canopy will be open or closed. If it is closed, not a whole lot will be visible in the cockpit. With such a dark base color, even with the canopy open, not a lot will be visible.

Next up the main weapons bay. There are 3 bays, the main, the port and the starboard. I have already decided I will not have the side bays open. I am still debating about the main bay, so I will build that up.

The main bay is put together

All that is left is the six weapon racks that have to be made up. One down, five to go.

And all of the weapon racks installed.

The nose wheel bay is next to be built up.

Here is where I am at a loss. If you look at the detail molded into the weapon bay pictures above and the main wheel bay to come, there is some fairly nice detail to the parts. For the nose bay, nothing except the one part that is attached at the end of the bay. Now maybe the actual aircraft has nothing in the bay, but I kinda doubt it. I just am at a loss as to why Hasegawa would put such effort into making the detail in the weapon bays and main wheel bay, but nothing for the nose wheel.

The two side bays are removed from the sprues (great detail).

And the main weapon bay, side bays and nose wheel bay are inserted into the bottom fuselage section.

Finally, a rubber gasket is held in place by this round plastic cap allowing the nose wheel to be removed. A very nice touch when it will get down to painting and decaling. (In fact, after looking ahead in the instructions, all of the wheels are designed to be removable. That will be very helpful.

Next up is the main wheel bay. There are four different sub-assemblies that are inserted into the fuselage. I have built those up.

These are off to get a coat of white before I install them. On a side note, being the ham fisted builder I am, I frequently send small parts sailing far away from where I want them to go. I may not be too thrilled about the hot pink plastic, but it is great when having to search for lost parts!! I haven’t lost a single little small part even though I have dropped several very tiny parts. Apparently, the carpet monster does not like pink. And this is where I stop today. As always comment welcome.

[Biggles87]

What a great idea, mould everything in pink! I don't have a carpet in my man cave but still manage to loose small parts with monotonous regularity.

[jer]

Think I'd prefer to do another Viggen splinter camo than apply all those flowers!!

Totally agree with biggles87 pink plastic is the was forward I have a tan dimpled carpet and there is enough plastic in it to scratch build at least 3 planes!

Looking forward to seeing the completed scheme.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Getting in touch with your feminine side George?

I hope you are wearing some sun-glasses to work safely with that plastic!

[modelglue]

I picked up a few of these (I mean, actually, had them delivered) when HLJ was having that sale. Got an F-2, a Flanker, and an F-18F all in 1/72 for ridiculously cheap. I don't care what colour the plastic is, they'll be getting painted none-the-less. I'm glad to see another BM'er going through the builds though, a tiny, tiny part of me wanted to see them built up in the 'master schemes.

[georgeusa]

Getting in touch with your feminine side George?

I hope you are wearing some sun-glasses to work safely with that plastic!

It is very bright plastic. When I did my first IdolMaster kit, the F-2A, I titled it :"How to Lose Your Man Card." I do not know why these fascinate me, but they do. On with the pink and flowers and butterflies. Does it help that in about 5 hours I will be at a Def Lepard/Kiss concert with my favorite?

[georgeusa]

I picked up a few of these (I mean, actually, had them delivered) when HLJ was having that sale. Got an F-2, a Flanker, and an F-18F all in 1/72 for ridiculously cheap. I don't care what colour the plastic is, they'll be getting painted none-the-less. I'm glad to see another BM'er going through the builds though, a tiny, tiny part of me wanted to see them built up in the 'master schemes.

I have built the F-2A in 1/48 already.

I plan to build all of them in their respective IdolM@ster schemes. And, to show you how weird I have become, I have a 1/32 Trumpeter A-10 I am building that will be decked out in an upsized version of the 1/48 kit decals. So, all of the kits I have will all cutesy and flowery with little girl anime figures on them.

[modelglue]

That is the Manliest little girl jet in the World. Have fun at your concert.

[Dazzio]

Haha! Nice to see one of these jets. I remember your F-2a georgeusa, from last year (or years ago?)... Throughly enjoyed it too. I'm building the 1/72 F-14D now. Guess I should move the build here! Let me know when you build the Rafale or the Wobbling Goblin, I'll join you with the 1/72 versions

Love that pit btw

Kind Regards

Dazz

[Pawel Szczudlyk]

Hi.this is not my cup of tea. I don't like it.the decals stars girls and flowers.

That's why I'm not doing it but you and have fun

Cheers

[hendie]

George, are you by any chance related to a certain Leopold Von Sacher Masoch ???

[Mark Turk]

George,

There are not many West Texas good ol' boys that I know that would be caught dead with one of those things in their display cabinet. You could have your man card revoked and your boots and spurs confiscated. Given that this is your second offence, you might even be given a one way ticket to California.

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt though and assume that you were blessed with only daughters and granddaughters. Making one of these for your granddaughter would be perfectly acceptable.

Mark

[georgeusa]

Update from the last of the weekend. After putting a coat of white on the main wheel bay parts, I installed them in the kit.

And from the wing openings they look like this

There are more parts of the main bay that need to be installed in the upper fuselage half to complete the bays.

I next moved on to the exhausts. I painted them a base of metallic silver. There are some visible injection marks, but once weathered and buttoned up; I do not think they will be noticeable at all.

After weathering, the injection marks are almost gone and it is all nicely grimed up.

I would normally do a little more weathering to put heat indications (red and blue tones) but I doubt little of these exhausts will be seen once the fuselage halves are buttoned up.

Once the exhausts were put together, they were placed in the lower fuselage half.

From here, there is a series of supports that are installed throughout the lower fuselage half to help align the two halves together properly. Interesting design, but if installation of the supports are off, then alignment will suffer.

Moving on, I begin to get the upper fuselage half ready so the two halves can be joined. The first step is to insert the cockpit into the upper section. This turned out reasonably well.

After I installed the cockpit, I realized I had not painted the sides of the fuselage black to match the cockpit parts. So, there is a tiny bit of cockpit wall that shows at the right angle and in the right light, bright pink. I am thinking of leaving it for a color contrast and it kinda matches the kit decoration scheme. Until I permanently place the canopy, it can always be fixed so I have some time to think about it. That’s it for now. As always, all comments welcome.

[georgeusa]

George,

There are not many West Texas good ol' boys that I know that would be caught dead with one of those things in their display cabinet. You could have your man card revoked and your boots and spurs confiscated. Given that this is your second offence, you might even be given a one way ticket to California.

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt though and assume that you were blessed with only daughters and granddaughters. Making one of these for your granddaughter would be perfectly acceptable.

Mark

Mark,

Although I am a Texan by choice, I was born in one of the less than desirable sections of Los Angeles. I am blessed only with a son, although I have a favorite niece that the F-2A was for. All of the rest, I got because I really like the challenge of building them and finishing them. It is akin to my fascination with Tiger Meet schemes. But, sometimes, even I worry about how they look and my feminine side!!

[georgeusa]

I start this update with the main wheel bay section that is attached to the upper fuselage. Some kit detail was installed on both sides

And then it was hit with a coat of grey primer before it gets its white paint treatment.

Next up I began work on the intake trunks. I primed the trunk sections with grey primer and then shot a coat of white on.

For the impeller blade representation I gave them a base of metallic silver

And then grimyed them up.

And that’s it for now. As always, all comments welcome.

[Mark Turk]

George,

I wasn't born in Texas either but as the saying goes, I got here as quick as I could.

I'm sure the idolmaster kits are just as fun to build as their gray sprue siblings. If you can get them at a discount, so much the better. As far as getting in touch with your feminine side goes, I suppose building one of these is better than wearing lipstick and high heels.

Keep up the good work on this one. It's looking great so far.

Mark

Edited July 15, 2014 by Mark Turk

[georgeusa]

Update. My goal is to get the plane completed enough so it is ready for painting. Now, what colors I am going to paint it, I haven’t the foggiest. But, why should I let a little thing like lack of planning stand in my way of progress!!

The intake sections were put together.

Once together; two observations. One, I should have not put any effort into painting the impeller blade parts as there is no way they can be seen with all of the twisty turns of the intake tubes. Second, there is one nasty seam in each intake.

Out comes some filler, some fun sanding, some fun self-flagellation and a fairly good result was had.

So into the fuselage the intakes go.

And as long as I am doing the exhaust system, I made up the four exhaust tips.

I also put the flaps together.

It is now time to put the fuselage halves together. It was fun getting all of the support pieces in the bottom fuselage half to match the holes in the top fuselage half. After a bit of fiddling and discovering some realignment of some of the wheel well detail parts in the top fuselage half needed to be slightly adjusted, the two parts came together and are now rubber banded and clipped to allow the glue to dry.

Continuing to concentrate on the tail end of the airplane, I march on to the stabilizers. First up, the vertical stabilizers. Here they are put together.

Then installed.

Once installed, looking at the rear of the plane, it seems as if there is a gap at the end of each vertical stabilizer that needs to be filled and the end of the each stabilizer closest to the tail of the plane doesn’t fit flush with the aircraft body. I would guess the entire length should be flush.

Prior to filling and sanding this area of the stabilizer flush with the fuselage body, I remembered I had a reference photo in my conference room that was of the rear of an F-22. Looking at it, it seems the actual aircraft has the same gap at the rear of the vertical stabilizers.

So, happy days, I do not have to fill and sand. I am always grateful to reduce that task. Next up are the horizontal stabilizers. They are very simple parts wise, just two parts per stabilizer. Below is one fixed up and the other awaiting construction, then both fixed up.

The kit design is for horizontal stabilizers to move. To that end, when the fuselage is put together, a nylon bushing is trapped between the fuselage halves and the end of each stabilizer fits snugly in the bushing allowing the bushing to hold the stabilizer in place while permitting movement of the stabilizers. That’s the design goal, at least.

Once you put the horizontal stabilizers in place, they fit relatively snugly. After a few minutes, though, these wonderful gaps begin to appear.

I will work a bit more with the use of the nylon bushing to see if the pieces just need to get broken into place. If the gaps keep reappearing, I will probably permanently glue the stabilizers in place.

Moving forward along the fuselage, given this plane’s paint and decal scheme, it just seems the weapon bays should all be closed. And this is done, saying fond farewell to their excellent detail.

Next up, a trip must be made to the LHS to determine what kind of paint they have will match the colors of this craft. I am looking for a hot pink and I would imagine a metallic dark grey; should be fun. As always, all comments welcome.

[georgeusa]

Paint update. I went to my local hobby shop, a task which I so dearly hated to be forced to do, yeah right! I was on a mission to try to figure out what color to paint this kit both top and bottom. For the bottom, I found a very nice Model Master Titanium color that I think will do well. For the top, I really couldn’t find a “right” shade of hot pink, go figure. I purchased the Titanium (and exercised great restraint and only purchased a magazine in addition; well that and some modeling supplies; well those and a 1/48 . . . I really have a problem.) Here is my new harebrained idea; I think I am going to go back to my roots as a kid just starting out and only paint the bottom of the aircraft and leave the top the bare plastic. I will do the bottom first as I toy with the finish on the top side just being the plastic. Otherwise, I will need to custom mix a color which sounds neither fun, nor particularly prone to success. I am open to suggestions about bare plastic versus painted surfaces. After the obligatory masking, I ended up with this.

The last picture is a close-up of the color that is slightly lighter than the plastic, but I think more accurately portrays a dark metallic finish for this fictional aircraft. (Don’t I sound all professional and authoritative. It’s fictional, so the color just looks cooler than the kit plastic finish!) I have since given the finish a coat of Future/Klear to prepare it for decals and washes.

With the bottom sprayed, it is time to touch up the wheel wells and weather them a bit for detail highlights. This is what I am starting with. The detail in the main wheel bays are excellent, not so much the nose bay.

For weathering, I normally do either a Flory wash or a Tamiya Smoke wash. What determines which is used is where the wash will go and ease of its accessibility. For a Flory wash, I need the area to be washed able to be accessed by either a paper towel or Q-tip. If access is not there, or the surface detail is very complex and raised, I use a Smoke wash. Because of the raised detail and accessibility, I used a Smoke wash on the wheel well bays. The initial coat is fairly heavy.

Then, the wash is removed by soaking a paint brush in Tamiya Acrylic Paint Thinner and brushing it over the surface to remove most of the wash through either dilution or wicked up by the paint brush. After some sessions of “removal and see what it looks like dry” these are the results.

At the same time, I also did the nose wheel bay and the landing gear covers

There is still some detail painting that must be done after the Future dries. After the detail painting, the fun and games of decal application begins. I estimate there are about 50 -75 different decals that will have to be applied. I am going over the diagram to determine their order as some must be laid down first for other layers to be placed. As always, all comments welcome.

[hendie]

very nice weathering George, it really does bring that detail out.

Custom mixing paint isn't really all that difficult - the main thing to watch out for is that you make enough and don't run out part way through the spray - for obvious reasons.

[Dynamo11]

Always nice to see something a bit different. Closest I got to these Anime planes was the Airfix TSR-2 that the reissued (but fortunately gave us anti-flash white decals for the originals)

[georgeusa]

Well, I have just about decided to go with the bare plastic color on top. I did find this rather interesting Dodge car color that I considered, but I think I will experiment with leaving the kit plastic color. I guess what will cinch it will be how it looks after a coat of Future.

[modelglue]

With all those decals, you might get away with that entirely. I found that the plastics from the bandai kits (macross, etc) hold up very well with a spray from a rattle can of either flat or gloss. Maybe with this dazzling colour you will get he same effect with future.

Good luck, and keep at it!

[Pete in Lincs]

George,

I just found this one. Talk about stealth!

I saw these on Hlj but I resisted!

Damn! Should have gone for it.

Pete

[georgeusa]

Pete,

I bought very many of the IdolM@ster kits and was very bad. Right now, I am fighting with the bottom side decals. Pictures tomorrow after the battle tonight. They wrinkle, they break and sometimes they want to resist conforming to the kit surfaces. I am essentially water boarding them into submission with decal solution. They may still be on sale. (Yep, just did a quick check and they still are on sale. http://www.hlj.com/scripts/hljlist?SaleGroup=SALEHSGAIR%C2'> that I am tempting you or anything.)

[georgeusa]

Warning Will Robinson!!! This update will be very picture intensive as all of the bottom side decals were placed and part of the top side. There are over 300 individual decals. Now what I discovered is the flowers are clumped together for the most part and do not have to be put on individually. That said it is still a little overwhelming when you look at the instructions and realize every number corresponds to a decal.

Looking at these instructions, some of the decals have Japanese notations beside them. Now would be a good time to know how to read Japanese. I am hoping that do not say something like “Don’t do this step now as you will truly regret it and it will turn your model into garbage!!” I am going to blissfully ignore the fact some decals have further instructions and pretend I am a know-it-all American who doesn’t need no stinkin’ instructions!! I do have to determine the order the decals needed to be placed to make them work correctly. Some decals overlay others, some butt into each other and some places there are multiple layers. After studying the instruction sheet it looks like I can divide the decal process into 6 parts: a) the fuselage; port wing; c) starboard wing; d) port side; e) starboard side; f) port stabilizer; and g) starboard stabilizer.

Starting with the fuselage section, there are not layers, but I do have to pay attention to symmetry between the port half of the fuselage and the starboard half. I placed the first nose decal. (I think I will be sick of pink and white flowers before this is all over.) Thank goodness for all of the raised sections on this plane, it makes placement of the decals so much easier to determine.

Just aft of the first set of flowers are some grey sections that have to be inserted between the raised detail of the kit.

So far, fairly easy and the decals have gone down with just a hint of fighting back, but the MicroSet/Sol system is working well. The first decal challenge will be the white border around the port intake. These white decals are thicker than the flowers and do not want to conform.

There will be more work required to get this to conform to the kit shape. To get the decal to wrap around the intake I had to take a brush loaded with setting solution and leave it stuck between the hollow created by the intake and fuselage. It didn’t look pretty, but it worked.

The next decal was a flower that had to wrap around a nice large complex curve.

Initially, it did not want to wrap around such an extreme curve. Looking at the rest of the model, there will be more of these problems; oh joy.

The nose wheel covers received their token flower that had to be cut in half and lined up.

After some prodding, cajoling and threatening the flowers started to conform to the complex curves of the kit.

The intake, however, developed some nice crinkles and decided to fight back.

I soaked it in setting solution and proceeded down the fuselage with more flowers

These also developed their own version of wrinkles that had to be sorted out.

More flowers

And more wrinkles and crinkles

Solution, brushing out the wrinkles with a fine brush, more solution and the decals began to behave.

While I do round and round of setting solution and brushing out wrinkles, I begin to tackle the starboard wing. Now this requires certain decals to be laid out first as other decals go on top. There are some large swoopy decals that cover the entire wing and there are decals to create a white border around the wing. The swoopy decals butt up against the white background in places, but in others, are covered up by them. One place where the decals butt up against each other is at the wingtip white border. So that is where I started with the white, thick, non-compliant white decal. (Are you sensing a problem here?)

It definitely does not want to cooperate. So I lather that up with setting solution and put on the large swoopy decal as this needs to be laid out first so other decals can be placed upon it.

It immediately wrinkles and also has a problem with a slight compound curve.

This is the kit part it needs to be persuaded to conform to.

No problem. There is a cutout in the main swoopy decal as it traverses where the main landing bay cover will stick out and a section on that part has to match the wing.

Remember the port wing tip white decal that didn’t like where it was placed? It has a new home now and has settled in.

To get this decal and the rest of the white border decals to settle in took well over two hours of placing setting solution and brushing out the wrinkles with a very soft paint brush. I hesitated to use a stronger setting solution as I was afraid it would do okay on the white decals, but would eat and turn the flower decals to a pulply, pinky mush. So, I went with the tortoise slow and easy school and it has worked out fairly well.

More work on the white border along the wing

And I will not bore you with the fun and games of flower placement and they just magically appear here. And on top of the swoopy decal and the flowers a rather nice sword and scabbard.

And what wasn’t nice, a surprise of surprises, they wrinkle and crinkle.

More setting solution is applied to the starboard wing decals and while I wait for that to work, I move on to the stabilizers. The white border is applied to both. (Along with the now, too familiar, unwillingness to conform to kit details)

And then the pretty flowers along with, yeah, you know . . .

Since I am having so much fun with the starboard wing, why not start work on the port wing decals!! The wingtip white decal border is applied, nice huh.

And beaten into submission

Then the swoopy decal with all of its wrinkles

And, it too doesn’t like the large compound curve.

It doesn’t like it so much; it rips at the corner where it meets the flap.

But, given some time and setting solution, the swoopy decal decides it likes the kit detail.

The little part of the decal that ripped that couldn’t be fixed will conveniently be covered by a white border decal. A little luck there. The rest of the white border decals are placed.

Along with the flowers

So on with the sides of the plane. I start off with the starboard side. The nose decals go on first with no greater problems than any of the other decals.

Next up, the intake gets some decals inside of the intake. This is where I wish I could have read the decal instructions. Perhaps they say, put these decals on before you attach the intakes as it will be a lot easier. Three decals need to go inside of the intakes with 2 that have to bend around a corner.

They surprisingly were easy to do. I was afraid they would not move to well over the surface of the kit but to be placed where they needed to go; they had to be slid into place. The flower decals around the starboard weapon bay are placed.

And lastly, the IdolM@ster logo is put in place.

Moving around to the port side, it should have been the same story. However, I found an errant piece of tape had prevented the lower paint coat from being applied near the port weapon bay.

It was masked off

And touched up with any damage to the existing decals.

After letting the paint dry, now it is time for the same story starting with the port weapon bay flowers

Then the port nose section.

The IdolM@ster logo

And finally the port intake

And here are the bottom decals are nicely tucked away in their crevices and curves.

I really am surprised at how well the decal eventually conformed to the kit surface. I really do not think I could ask for a better result.

Next up, need to fix another problem. I did not notice the nose cone needed to be painted white. I guess I thought there would be a decal for that too. Not really. It was great fun to mask up trying to be careful and not mess up the existing nose decals. It was also a joy to mask up due to all of the angles that have to be accounted for.

I am happy to state only the life of one flower was lost in the painting of this nose cone. The bottom of the kit was then sprayed with a top coat to protect the decals, mainly from me. The masking tape was removed from the top part of the kit and it received a couple of coats of Future in preparation for its decals.

After the Future dried, the port nose decals were begun.

Then I moved to the inner surface of the port vertical stabilizer and put its white border on.

And of course, it has a few flowers too.

And this is where I am stopping for the weekend. I have probably gone through a half bottle of Micro Sol to get the decals to behave. Although they are slow to react, the do react predictably and with good results. I am quite happy with the results of the bottom section decals. And, the top decals seem to be going on a bit easier over the bare plastic coated in Future. As always, all comments welcome.