Frank Fontaine

Thirded! Cracking photographs I must say. I really did make the wrong choice when I left school...

Jonas has a point, would the engines really burn that hot and clean to give the discolouration? Having the exhaust tips looking so clean against the weathered body panels might look a bit odd, BUT having that colour gradient would look good. My mind sees a combination of the 2 effects; the the heat colouring further in where the combustion process would occur, fading out and into soot closer to exhaust tip where the combustion gases/ unburnt fuel would mix with the excess environmental oxygen at a cooler temperature and burn to produce this carbon deposit (I'd be highly surprised if Mekboy Wingnutz would have the patience to tune his machines for efficiency or any such 'oomie behaviour).

Thanks chaps. Your comments are much appreciated, thank you very much for the advice. I genuinely don't know why I didn't weather the cockpit detail, although I do agree it would benefit from it. I think it was because it was only as I was building this dirty base that I decided that a pristine Valkyrie would look a bit odd, had I not glued the canopy down and then green stuffed the gaps I probably would have tackled it. I don't normally like to see weathering over used and prefer a more 'factory fresh' look. It teaches me to plan the whole build more thoroughly in future. Will, I whole heartedly agree with your comment about the camoflauge painting. The camo pattern was sponged on using a couple of the missus make up sponges which were probably a bit too fine/soft for the stipled effect I really wanted. Seeing as I didn't have an airbrush at the time it was the best I thought I could do. In future such designs will be sprayed. I'll look into weathering the decals too, now you mention it they tend to shout out a bit don't they? Oilenach, I don't live in Philly and while you're more than welcome to drive down to Grimsby to have a look I reckon even that would be too much of a mission! :-p Jonas, Given that this took me a year to finish (with a month to do the base) I think it'll be a while before there's another RFI thread! Next up is a Krieg command squad with a few additions (autocannon crew and a Krieg Comissar) and then I plan to do a Krieg Leman Russ Demolisher. Both of these will allow me to practice my spraying and weathering techniques.

Looking good so far Warren, looking forward to seeing how it shapes out. Is an all metal kit easy to work with then?

Here is my first completed model since joining BM and therefore my first RFI thread. I mostly model Warhammer 40K stuff as I have an (ever increasing) Imperial Guard army that I would like to see finished before I get too old to see what I'm doing! This kit has been in the making for about a year or so, with a house move in the middle and is almost entirely out of the box. Only exceptions are some random decals purchased from Ebay and a bit of brass rod on the nose telemetry assembly. The base coat was sprayed with Humbrol Sea Grey before being finished off exclusively with GW acrylics. It's the first plastic kit I've attempted in quite a few years and represented quite a steep familiarisation curve while I re-learned everything. The base was entirely scratch built and took a little over a month to complete. The Chaos renegade corpse is a Mantic Games zombie attacked with a drill and some green stuff. I'm going to try and get this displayed in my local Games Workshop store just for the irony of having some of their ex-employees miniatures displayed in their window. Weathering on the steel girders was done with Phil Stutcinskas' much vaunted hairspray technique and all other weathering was done with Mig powders and some acrylic thinners. I apologise for the quality of the photo's; it seemed too bright outside and too dull inside but inside had less shadows. Most of the photo's were taken on my Canon Eos 350D with a standard 18-55m lens and the rest were taken using my old Olypus on macro setting. I really need to look at getting a larger apperture/macro lend for the Canon! I wanted it to look like the Chaos chap had been sniped with some suitably large calibre weapon while using a set of field glasses. He was intended look reasonably fresh but with some accumulation of dirt. He has the Chaos Undivided star on his back and while you can't see it because it's on the ground side of his head, he has the Khorne symbol on his skull. Various accessories were taken from the standard IG accessories pile. The concrete slabs were made with bits of polystyrene coatede in a mix of platser, PVA and modelling sand. 1mm copper wire from some twin and earth were used as the re-inforcing rods. The crater edges were built up using the same plaster/PVA and sand mix. I wanted to create a shell crater filled with water. The water was a 2 part epoxy mix called "Magic Water" and was coloured with a burnt umber oil paint thinned with white spirit. Only problem with this is that it has a very thin consistency when first mixed and so found every leak point in the original moulding! Most of the model was painted on the sprue and this allowed me to paint all of the interior detail but that in turn made the overall build quite long! I am partucularly proud of the cockpit detail on the instrument binnacles and the pilot and co-pilot! The numerals on the tail booms and the crew idents were done using white vinyl lettering as my hand isn't steady enough for free hand writing. The vivid white colour has been turned down a little bit using some weathering powder. I dislike the way GW go to great lengths to include a lot of detail and then let themselves down at the last moment with dull paint schemes and even worse decal patterns so I added a few random ones I bought off Ebay and decided to give the Valkyrie a bit of nose art and individualise the pilots helmets. I do like that this is science fiction and therefore there is no right or wrong; but for degrees of real world accuracy I'll welcome all pointers (particularly around insignia etc). I'm a big Philadelphia Egles fan and so decided that the aircraft ident and crew should have some loose connection with the team. In this case I chose Vick (quarterback) and Jackson (Wide Reciever) as the crew and to have EG-103 as the squadron marking. I cocked this up too as Jackson wears the #10 jersey and Vick wears the #7 jersey and I wanted their numbers to be reflected here, but "103" works well enough for me and I was too tired to be bothered correcting the mistake on both tail booms. This is science fiction after all! It was my first ever go with weathering powders and while I was gahppy to attack the base with everything I had, my imagination let me down with the aircraft itself and this was limited to some rubble dust applied to the landing skids and soot on the exhaust petals and inside edges on the tail booms. If anyone can suggest anything else I'd be glad to hear it. I also don't like the rear landing skid, it makes the Valkyrie look ungainly in flight in my opinion. If (when!) I build the next one I'll be adding plenty of weight in the nose and leaving undercarriage at the wings and nose skids. In future I'll also be paying a lot more attention to mold lines and gap filling; in general GW are pretty good on this kit but there is a gap where the cockpit section meets to main fuselage. Having read on here that I've been applying decals wrong all my life I'd be using the proper solutions in future (I'll also be making sure that they're all the right way up too, a mistake I realise just after I sprayed it with varnish! :-p). Next time I'd also dip the canopy etc, as soon as I can find some suitable dipping solution that isn't Klear... I'm very happy with the way it turned out and right now I'd very happily welcome your comments, suggestions and criticisms. My thanks in advance...

I just used a 2 pack called "Magic Water" which doesn't appear to create any heat at all. However, it has the viscosity of water when It's first mixed and can take a couple of days to cure. Other downside is that if you're not exact with your quantities it's cure fully (as I have just found out to my cost, solution is to mix another very small batch and pour it over the top of the previous batch). Not much help for your aplication but it is an alternative for still water and to suggest that 2 pack mixes don't always generate heat...

It'll be tiny and cost... oooh, a kidney! Agree with you though, the Forge World stuff beats the GW stuff hands down (it's all still lightyears ahead of my meagre talents though).

A Spitfire on generic version. I was about 9 years old and insisted that the underneath should be painted in green and brown camo. I remember this clearly as my Dad's suggestion that the pilot should fly upside down was the funniest things in the world. Strange how you remeber these little details innit?!

Depending on when this would run I'd be up for taking part. It would give me a chance to make a model of my all time favouritest ever plane: The SR-71 Blackbird! I know Italeri made one in 1/48 but that might just be a little on the large side!

Will, this looking superb! Nicely weatherd and (ab)used without going OTT, like GW tend to do for some strange reason. I just bought my borther a war truck for his birthday and the quality of the painting on the back of the box was atrocious. I understand and appreciate the weathered look but the studio painters seem to use it to excess and there seems to be virtually no effort towards smooth colour transitions or blending any more. Shame. By the way, those are some of the best Genestealers I've ever seen! I love the mini's in the Space Hulk box set, so well detailed and full of movement and action.

Loving the camo pattern, watching this one for sure!

Very nice sir!

Some good tips there for us all. Out of interest, what is everyone obsession with Tamiya tape? Sure any low tack masking tape would suffice?

Wow. Just wow. Well done!

the detail in the cockpit is astonishing! Good luck, I'm sure you'll do it justice!

Roit, based on the advice of those above me I've decided that my entry will be a Hobbtboss F/A-18C; that way I can aim for that awesome eagle livery as I'm a big Philadelphia Eagles fan too Time will tell if this is to OOB or fiddled with...

Thanks chaps, I'll look into those!

Not always but best intentions and all that!

Well, I mooched into town yesterday to look at buying a kit, and ended buying a Italeri 1:72 kit for C or D variants. It's the variant that I wanted as I think I prefer the smaller, more rounded intakes as oppsed to the huge box like one's on the Super Hornet. Downside is that a look at the quality of the kit doesn't meet my expectations in terms of moulded detail, plus it's possibly a little small at that scale but it's all they had and to be fair it was only £8. I think this one will be used as a practice run while I hunt for another, larger, kit. Lots of things to learn to get myself up to the very high standard of what's on display on these here boards! Plus this one doesn't come with a pilot and I want to model mine on the deck of a carrier lined up to the catapult and ready for take off.

Mac, You're tempted aren't you after the Lotus?! Hi Pascal and welcome! This looks to be a lovely kit to build. I'll be watching this with interest! Good luck!

Yep, that was my first word too. Fantastic colour schemes you've chosen Pete, can't understand why they're not more common?! I love the detail in the engine!

That, sir, is absolutely jaw dropping. Having read through your build thread a week or so ago and the difficulties you've faced I wasn't expecting to see it RFI any time soon but here it is! Congratulations on an incredible build! I'm never building one of these as I don't think I could ever do it justice!

The different flap looks good but wouldn't be a little more cohernet if it wasn't on it's own? There looks to be a few plates that have been hastily riveted on during it's life, I'd possibly be tempted to colour a few other bits, just to make it look a little more 'wounded'. Just my opinion of course...

Thank you both for your help, I do appreciate it. Madmonk, please could you could add my name to GB list for this one, I'll find the time somehow! FBB, many thanks for the list of kit options, gives me plenty of scope for finding something suitable. But I don't think I feel 630 Euros flush!

Hi, by signing up now is there an obligation to participate? I'm just thinking that I'd love to build an Aston Martin DBR9 in the Gulf livery or a Corvette C6R (if such a kit exists). BUT I've asked for my name to be added to the F18 GB and if they both happen at the same time I have no idea if I would be able to get the spare time to do both. I think I'd be listening to this near constantly every day as motivation!