Chablar

Deleted - wanted post

Sorry, no. I should have said. The undercarriage bays and doors are aftermarket, I think they are Aeries (spelling?). They are lovely. The ejection seats are also aftermarket, and I picked up some Fighting Omar transfers too.

Hey everyone. This is my first aircraft WIP on Brit modeller, I've been modelling since I was a child - but as I am currently a full time carer and have two young children I have to grab time when I can to build kits. As such I haven't finished a model entirely since 2008 (i've come pretty close). The F/A-18 is my favourite aircraft of all time, it was the first model I ever made when I was young, and I just hope I can do her justice. I've always wanted to do a hornet in the Fighting Omars aggressor scheme, but I've also always wanted to do a wild weasel Hornet. So I thought I would combine the two, as like I said I don't get an awful lot of time spare. Feedback is welcomed, and I hope I don't bottom this up too badly. The first thing I did is the undercarriage legs, bays and bay doors. These were primed and painted Revell white, washed brown, then them weathered with whites and browns. Im pretty happy with how they look, but I may go over them again with some white, they sometimes look a little pastelly (if that's a word). Next I went onto the cockpit. Let me know what you guys think, and it's very nice to meet you all

Looks fantastic. This may be a n00b question but how do you get that really nice faded effect with the green in the cockpit? Is it an inkwash or done with an airbrush? Ive seen a lot of people get thag effect and it looks great

Would you mind elaborating on your canopy sanding method a bit more for me? Im facing a similar problem on my F18

Hey everyone. I'm currently building an F/A-18D, I'm aiming to do her carrying Mavericks. I ideally wanted to put Sparrows on the fuselage mounts, but then I thought about the guidance pods. My question is, the AN/AAS-38A, and the AN/ASQ-173, can I choose one or the other, or do they both need to be used in conjunction? The only pictures ive seen online show them carrying both. Thanks everyone

Looks really good. I love the green shade in the cockpit

Looking forward to it

THAT lick is exactly the one I was looking for. I had it saved on my phone as it was so hard to find, and of course my phone broke so I lost the link. I much prefer the nemesis variant. There are structural differences such as the position of the nacelles and the trim behind the shuttle bay that make the ship look much more streamlined. The paint scheme is also considerable different. If anyone is interested this is my attempt at a Nemesis E. I did this quite a few years ago and its currently been sidelined. There is a LOT of things I would change about it, so i'm aiming to start a fresh. I did all of the paint with a brush which ruined detail, and doesn't look how I had hoped http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234924339-uss-enterprise-e/ My reference for the paint scheme (although you probably can't tell ) is Ian Lawrence's (great guy) Sovereign Replicas 1/650 scale build which you can find here: http://www.ianlawrencemodels.com/srenterprise.html And the WIP here: http://www.ianlawrencemodels.com/wipsrent.html That model is one of the most beautiful things i've ever seen . The structural changes to the vessel do make a bit of difference, so if you were seriously considering the refit it may be better to see if you can grab that after market set. Of you could also make changes yourself. Give me a PM if you need any help

My absolute favourite vessel. She's gorgeous. The AMT is a nice kit but a bugger to light. It should be the FC version rather than the Nemesis variant. There are some structural differences between the two and im pretty sure someone even makes a resin set for the 1/1400 scale. Ill be watching this one

Golly that's beautiful

Thanks for the advice. Ive got some Klear so may stick some of that on later. Are you aiming to brush or airbrush it on?

Thanks everyone . Clear parts have been masked with tape, and maskol around the difficult parts. Then lightly airbrushed copper with a couple of coats. The deflector is also lightly misted with some metallic paint, it looked a bit funny without it next to the clear part. And with the lights on... Now its difficult to see from the photos due to the exposure, but the metallic paint shows to be quite grainy with the lights are on, which to be honest i'm a little disappointed about. I maybe should have used acrylic instead of an enamel paint, but I guess its too late now. IMaybe a few coats of varnish later will help smooth things over

I think that looks really good mate. If need be you can always airbrush some very diluted ink into it to weather it and accentuate the details without adding too many layers of paint

Can't seem to put this thing down lately, she's really starting to come together. More details painted: Finally got the tape taken off the warp engines and navigational deflector: Thanks for looking, just a couple more dabs of paint, then decals. The end is near my friends

Another little update. Been working on the thrusters. These look a little too bright so i'm going to dry brush them with a darker brown to make them less profound in colour. The yellow parts on the warp engines were painted Humbrol Yellow, washed with a brown wash and them drybrushed yellow again, simple stuff. Other parts on the hull (the dark grey) have been picked out, as well as the cargo bay doors and some details around the bottom of the intermix chambers. Cheers for looking

I've been working on the sensor arrays. They were first airbrushed black, then dry brushed dark grey. I've then started picking out the details with a brush, i am going to add more colour to them in the form of more details, but not too much as I don't want them to look overly bright. There has been a little paint bleeding through the masking but I am going to correct this later. I've also added a few pictures with the lights, seems a while since i've put them on. As you can probably tell, the lights could be brighter, the battery is running a little low. Continuing to crack on with the details. I started this kit on the 24th August last year, it only struck me now how long i've spent on this thing ... . The sensor arrays are now finished, once again ignore the paint bleed, this will be touched up later on. As you can see some of the details have been picked out on the top of the bridge and also deck 2. Shuttle bay has been started, I need to pick out the details with a tan colour. I've also taken the masks off the impulse engines and painted the trim. I'm a little unhappy with the dark brown section at the base of her spine, it just looks a little too obvious and out of place. What do you guys think? The details on the 'aeroshuttle' have also been picked out. I'm going to lightly go around her outline later on with a pencil, but i'll do that just before I varnish her. Next I make a start on the primary and secondary navigational deflectors. I found a really lovely orange / clay colour that is perfect for the thrusters and deflectors. I mixed it in with a little dark brown and i'm very pleased with the colour. Deflectors are finished after a little brush work. I dry brushed them with the original orange colour, picked out certain sections with a darker brown and tan, then dry brushed the whole part with a dark brown to make sure it isn't too bright. I've got to be honest, it's refreshing using a paint brush again, this kit has a good mix of large areas for using the air brush and detailed areas for a regular brush. After the weathering... Finished deflector... I may give it a very very light misting later with a copper colour, but i'm going to wait and see how it looks against the main deflector part. Let me know what you think. Thanks for looking

After some slow progress the phaser strips are done: Thanks for looking

quick update

Ive finished the panelled effect now. I did the same technique as before, however this time using a lighter grey to accentuate to darker spots and add some dynamics to the effect. The effect was a little heavy on the upper primary hull so I rubbed her down with a little wet and dry and it looks a lot better. I'm not going to focus on individual parts, phaser strips, aft torpedo launchers, the deflector, nacelle grills etc Thanks for looking

Finally managed to get the aft end fixed up after the masking tape incident. I filled her in, re primed the section, and then tried to get the right colour which looks pretty good for the most part. All that's left now to do is to replicate the panel effect on the lighter grey sections as you may notice they don't blend entirely well at the moment. Thanks for looking

Thanks. Thats what i was aiming for. The biggest problen has been that it took all the paint off. Ive filled it and primed it again so an going to start air brushing next. Fingers crossed

This looks phenominal. Well done mate. Im going to grab one of these for myself hopefully

Not a happy bunny at all, and that's not even because i'm not a bunny... Painted the lighter grey sections with Humbrol Matt 64, pulled on the masking tape, and literally soiled my loins So recovery action follows, What's so annoying is that it's taken off every layer of paint, plus the primer. So there is now a huge difference in the depth of the hull. Ive had to fill it, and will put some primer on it again, go over with the base colour and then try and emulate the subtle shading, which hopefully wont be too hard. On the plus side the grey portions on top and on the primary hull do look rather nice. After i've managed to fix the damage ill make sure I put some varnish on her. Thanks for looking

The base grey was Humbrol Satin 127, which is like light ghost grey. The radial lines on the lower primary hull were done with Satin 128, which is dark ghost grey. I had some problems with the grey not being dark enough on the rest of the ship so I mixed in a little Satin 126, which made the grey darker.