Andrew

Here are some pics of the near-pristine sprues... I think their pristine-ness is starting to bother me... Is it 27 June yet, @DaveJL?

Hi everybody, I'm excited for this Group Build to start and will be building my recently acquired Tamiya F-14D; it looks a gorgeous kit on the sprue and I'm champing at the bit to make a start on it! I'll be building the kit as one of VX-9's jets, 164599 (modex 254) and will utilise a sheet by VF-Decals to do so. Other aftermarket I'll throw at the project are a Master pitot and some resin seats by MiniCraft Collection (72008). I may have technically started the kit this morning by snipping the main fuselage pieces from their sprues and cleaning the attachment points. If indeed this actually happened, it was only to check fit; it most definitely was not to play with/delight in the knowledge that I was holding what I assumed would never eventuate - a 1/72 Tomcat by Tamiya! Alright, maybe it was the latter.

I'm calling this done - hopefully it helps to bring about Fine Molds' release of an F-4S sooner rather than later! Thanks for looking in.

Hi Eric, So many great schemes for an iconic aircraft, and yet so little time! I contemplated making this project as an Aeronavale aircraft in overall blue, but the attraction of the RAF grey/white scheme was just too great! I hope you're successful in squeezing the Lancaster into your excellent program.

Thanks, and the challenge for me has been to settle on just one of the post-war schemes; I like them all! I'm a little concerned at how well I can render great swathes of white on such a large aircraft, but I'll do my best and perhaps utilise some 'strategic' weathering. Some of the photos of Lancasters in this scheme suggest that they weathered significantly, and that white was a difficult colour to keep clean!

Hi folks, I'd like to contribute a Lancaster MR.3 operated by the School of Maritime Reconnaissance at RAF St Mawgan in the early 1950s, using Hasegawa's 1/72 kit. The scheme will (probably) be as per the RF325 option on S & M Models decal sheet 72003 - Medium Grey over White, with D-type roundels and carrying a red/yellow exercise band on the rear fuselage. I was fortunate to locate this kit (00945) recently for a reasonable sum (i.e. not too exorbitant) and with this Group Build in mind, I pounced on it! I doubt that I'll use the kit's resin lifeboat for this project, but it might still see the light of day attached to an Air Sea Rescue Lancaster build (if only I'd secured Freightdog's ASR/MR Lancaster resin enhancement set when it was available!). Thanks for looking in!

So true, but I find lo-vis schemes so appealing! I should have checked with a sacrificial marking from that sheet via the process you describe, but the printed colour looked sufficiently dark to contrast nicely with the middle colour; lesson learned! I notice that some modern decal manufacturers give you test pieces to utilise for this exact reason (or are just more careful to print colours to standard). Or, I need to invest in a cutting machine with some really fine resolution, and masking material to match! Thanks to all for your encouragement!

Yes, the decals... did I foolishly combine 'luck' and 'decals' in the same sentence in my previous post? Little did I know then that luck would not play any part in the decalling process... The old Microscale sheet (72-541) with markings for the VMFA-312 jet I wanted to depict was a bit yellowed, so while I was attending to a certain pair of Fine Molds Phantoms in another build thread, I took the opportunity to give the sheet some quality window time in the interests of increasing its Vitamin D dosage, or letting UV light work its magic on the yellowing, or whatever it is that happens when decals meet sunshine... Anyway, with time duly served by decals in the sunlight, and gloss coat applied to the kit, I began the exciting and much-anticipated process of getting the markings onto the F-4S. My positive expectation evaporated within seconds when I realised that the checkerboard strip on the tail (which should have been in a dark grey) proved to be perfectly matched to the middle colour of the lo-vis scheme, 36320. Other markings that were also meant to be dark grey (or at very least 35237) soon showed themselves to be co-conspirators in this tragic comedy when they also perfectly matched the colour they were being applied to... no counter-shaded markings for Andrew this time 'round... Oh dear, said I. Long story short, I abandoned my cunning plan for the VMFA-312 scheme (and my ridiculous efforts to render the darker uppersurface colour that seemed to be a feature of this jet) and went searching for alternatives... A scheme offered on Microscale sheet 72-441 for a VF-171 jet looked promising... I found a picture of that jet and dared to dream that the colours already applied would be fine... No such luck; there was sufficient difference in the paintwork to warrant revisiting at least some of the uppersurface scheme. Which is how we ended up in this amusing situation: Masked for a repaint of FS35237, the darkest of the three colours - And then post-application of the new darkest colour - Hopefully the difference between the two paint schemes will be (lo-)visible... Okay, I think it's safe to apply another coat of gloss and then get on with the decals (again).

Thanks gents. @Matt Pallot, the Fine Molds Phantoms are very nice kits and highly enjoyable. Your options for Phantom variants grow with every release - good luck with your build!

Today's update is brought to you by the letter 'M', which is fortunate because it suits the 'masking' and 'metallics' theme... I've learnt with this build that one of its key lessons is to remind me why I have such a stockpile of masking tape. Another lesson is to be grateful for tape that doesn't lift underlying paint; the use of lacquers might minimise the risk of that, given how tough they are, but it's still a very satisfying feeling to remove the tape with no effect on the paint underneath - it would be motivation-sapping to have to backtrack and deal with paint blemishes and touch-ups. The metallics I've used for the Phantoms' hot sections are Alclad, Gunze and Testors Metallisers (more lacquers) with mixtures of their steel, titanium, jet exhaust and burnt metal colours. They are so durable; I can mask panels and areas for different shades very quickly (admittedly with the lowest-tack tape I can find, or I just use post-it notes) and so all of the metallics painting was all completed in just one session. Huzzah! Anyway, enough of the blather, here are the pics: thanks again for looking in.

I was probably exaggerating a little in the last post - I suspect that there was only several hundred bits of tape required to mask off the walkways for both kits. I do know that it took a long time to mask, a short while to paint each kit, and then a surprisingly long time to de-mask (and build a nice pile of discarded tape that would make the Dadaists proud). The excitement builds; here I was close to unleashing a couple of new shades of very dark grey on the kits and the world:- And with paint applied and masking removed: The F-4J - And the F-4G - I think metallic areas will be next... Thanks for looking in.

Oh alright, just so the clamouring stops! After the main camouflage colours come the rest: trim, anti-glare panels, walkways, hot end metallic areas and so on and so forth... For the F-4J, there's not so much in the way of trim and anti-glare to take care of (although it's still gotta be masked and colours selected):- The F-4G is a whole 'nother story... The trimmage (feel free to use this little addition to English wherever you like) is abundant, and the anti-glare panel convoluted... I've had to guess at the trim colour - I think it's black (gasp!) - and indulge in some guessametrics as to the extent of the anti-glare panel; I have only one reference photo of my particular subject from which to work, and it's not the greatest quality. Nevertheless, here's my humble attempt to get it right: after paint:- and with masking removed:- Phew! Just another 3,792 bits of masking to apply to take care of the walkways now...

So do I! Thanks very much for replying, and for your concern. Arguably though, my work here is done ... ... so less pressure on me to carry this through to completion now! And just as I was about to post an update, featuring more shoddy pics of some truly shoddy modelling! Not to worry.

Hello everyone, In preparation for application of the Light Gull Grey (LGG), there's a bit of work to do to mask off the underside and uppersurface white areas. Fortunately there's nothing too tricky and once both kits were masked, I extracted a few different offerings of LGG from the paint repository and got to mixing. Contributors to this particular colour riot were lacquers by Gunze (C11 and C315), GaiaNotes (219) and even Tamiya (LP-34). Here's the F-4G all masked:- The F-4J:- And post-application of LGG:- As good as it is to have the two main colours on, it's not the end of the story - there's canopy/anti-glare panels, trim colours and obviously the metallic areas yet to go, but at least it feels like a big move forward!

I hope those photos were useful, @neil5208. I've tried something a little different with painting the undersides - one kit, the F-4J, received a light coat of very light grey (not white!) straight over the primer grey before application of pastel-hued marbled colours, and the other, the F-4G, had those different pale colours applied directly to the grey primer. In both kits' cases, the final application of the underside insignia white (as represented by a very pale grey [not white!]) would be done as very thin coats to achieve ~85-90% coverage over the marbling. Here's the sequence of these layers being applied, starting with the F-4J:- and the F-4G at the start of the marbling process:- both kits with the marbling nearly complete:- marbling complete on both kits:- and lastly, here's both kits as they sit this morning, with the final insignia white coat applied:- It's amazing how much like white a very light grey can look! The Light Gull Grey is next!