a.k.a. thom

As others have said, that's an excellent finish on the paintjob. Very nice.

You won everything! Amazing work.

Love your work in the cockpit, looks nice and busy now.

Soooo shiny.... That's so lovely.

You managed that in only one week?! My goodness... I'm impressed.

Interesting scheme, lovely paint job. Complementi, Ettore.

Lovely well-used appearance.

Those are the SHORT wings? Crikey... Lovely finish, unusual kit.

Stunning paint job on that. Very realistic looking weathering.

You don't need me to tell you that's amazing, but I will anyway: that's amazing.

Two things really stand out - the delicacy of the underside weathering and your metal finish on the exhaust area. Lovely.

Goodness me, how thoroughly excellent. Bravo.

Always love to see a Maltese Spit and this is a great example. Looks beautifully battered.

I think I'd be pretty chuffed in 1/24th! Pretty damn good regardless of what size it is, but amazing given the scale.

Great job on that camo, guess you went freehand with the airbrush to get that look - I bow down to your superior skills. Nice overall build, too.

Uh, another dull low-viz scheme...

It's nice to know that someone's carefully collected stash has gone to someone deserving now that they have passed on.

Thanks everyone, some good feedback there. Alex - the darkening of the lines has come out somewhat darker in the photos than it looks to the naked eye, which is annoying because I did actually use a very thin black at low pressure to do the shading! I was trying to replicate the effect I've seen on control surfaces of a few Seahawks, where oil mixed with seapsray gives a rather diffuse smudge around the edge. I don't think I captured it though! Graham - it's a good point. Aerials are one of the areas on my list of things in need of improvement. I'll definitely look at more in-scale items rather than using the kit ones. Thanks all! Tom

Ok, pointers it is: 1) Nose weight. Lots of nose weight. In fact, I'd stick a spare pilot in, shut the canopy up, drop the arrestor hook and pose it just landing on a carrier deck. 2) Make sure you have a really shiny gloss coat on before you apply the decals. They'll settle where they like, then proceed to silver should you do so much as suggest that they move a little bit! 3) The opening of the rear section of the fuse is the wrong shape for the opening on the front half. I'd suggest the first thing you do is assemble the rear fuselage a week before you start the rest of the kit, then use a bit of spare sprue carefully sanded to length to stretch it vertically from the inside, which will also help to draw the sides in. 4) Make the effort to drill out the machine gun ports. 5) Take much, much care with the undercarriage, especially at the front end, where it's a mess. 6) The wings are really not well supported if folded, or well designed if not. Make your decision early on, and be prepared to work to make it happen. 7) The kit seat is a dog. Buy a Pavla one from Hannants, code PAVS4822. 8) The fit of the jet exhaust area is a bit of a mess, so be careful and perhaps try not to follow the instructions exactly on this one. 9) The intakes will need some work - there's a bit of a step at the bottom, and the mouldings of the vanes themselves is shockingly messy. Spend a bit of time fixing both these issues and you'll really notice the difference. 10) The little vents in front of the cockpit are very poorly represented. If you're feeling brave, open the whole vent section up and then use some tiny little bits of card or leftover slivers of photoetch fret to make the little vanes. That's it for now, although when you get going with the kit feel free to drop me a PM if you want to discuss its vagaries.

My latest finish. More than a few problems (nowhere near enough nose weight, wrong angle for the folded wings, silvered decals, missing horrible waspy Suez stripes), but I don't care! Please offer criticisms of the end result. I'm still very far from where I want to be as a modeller, and desperately want to learn where I can improve.

If I could offer one piece of advice, it would be to add a matt coat over the top. Matt finishes suit intermediate colours like greys and blues, gloss finishes suit red and blacks. As a general guide, if it's a mute tone, use a mute finish. Other than that, looks pretty good to me!

Could be way off the mark, but weren't there rumours about an oriental Tonka F2/3 new tool in 48th some time next year? I have some decals I want to use and can't get an Italeri for love nor money...

Looks pretty good but for a couple of issues. The moulding is the typical 'soft' Revell moulding, at least looking at those sprues. There's always the chance it won't be so in real life - their recent Lanc, for instance, looks a lot nicer in my hands than sprue shots I've seen on the web, so it could well be an optical illusion. The other thing is the mains gear doors are lame, though that's picking the very finest of nits, and I'm only conscious of it because I've just built Tamiya's offering. It'll sell if they get the varieties right, and get them out soon. A PR version would kick bottom and make cash.

Yeah, but what's it like to build? Only kidding... thanks for the list.

Just an update on this in case you've not seen it elsewhere - Hannants have it for £25 (clicky). Large money, but a great kit, as Greg has so ably demonstrated.