CheekyRascal

The kit I have in the stash right now is the Academy 1/72 kit. Although I did see the Great Wall Hobby kit built in one of Plasmo's YouTube videos. the GWH kit appears to have superior details. I will likely end up getting that kit for my build.

Thanks again to you all for helping to clarify the situation. For many many years, I have believed that the Strike Eagle was a greenish shade. The hardest part of all of this is adjusting to the fact that a long held belief simply isn’t true.

Thanks to all who helped clarify the issue. I must say that I am a bit surprised that the camera does indeed lie. FS 36118 it is!

Good day, fellow modelers, I have a (hopefully) simple question regarding the colour of the F-15E Strike Eagle. Yes, I know, FS 36118. However.... There are numerous photographic examples showing Strike Eagles wearing a distinctly green shade of colour. I have attached a few below. It seems to me that this cannot be a fading / weathering effect from FS 36118. The hue is too different. I also doubt that this apparent deviation from FS36118 is a result of photographic error / filters, etc. Again, FS 36118 is a distinctly blue shade of dark gray. These photos are distinctly green to me. I have spoken to Eagle drivers at airshows, and they have said that all Strike Eagles, without exception, are FS 36118. Can someone shed some light on this mystery green colour that some Strike Eagles appear to be wearing? Thank you, and Cheers!

Here is a quick update. I have added some panel shading with different shades of Alclad II and Model Master Metalizers. I am pleased with the results. I have also painted the black anti glare panel and scratched thru to the bare metal in places for a chipped look.

Here is the post Alclad II picture:

Here is a quick photo of my latest build in progress. The kit is Hasegawa's 1/72 Ki-61 combo set featuring 2 kits from the 244th Sentai. I am going for a natural metal finish using Alclad II lacquer. The canopy has been masked and sprayed with the interior color. I will probably hit the canopy again with a clear lacquer gloss coat to protect the undercoat as well as provide a glossy surface on which to spray the Alclad II. There was some seam clean up needed behind the cockpit and especially on the underside where the leading edge of the wings met the fuselage. I used Mr. Surfacer 500 for the seam work, and then sprayed the entire model with a well thinned coat of Mr. Surfacer 1500 to act as a primer for the Alclad II. Since the panel lines were rather shallow to begin with, the primer coat neatly made them disappear. To remedy that, I used a scribing tool to deepen the panel lines and make them a little more pronounced. After the scribing was complete, I started to sand and polish the primer coat with micromesh cloth to reduce surface imperfections. . But more importantly, it has been my experience that one needs to have a glass like sheen on the surface in order to yield maximum results from Alclad II. I know it is recommended that one use gloss black as a primer for Alclad II, however it has been my experience that having a glass like surface is the most important factor driving success with Alclad II. The micromesh cloth polishing started with 6000, then moved to 8000 and 12000 respectively. In the photo, the starboard wing has been completed. The rest of the model remains to be done. Every natural metal finish attempt with Alclad is a new experience and I learn something each time. Hopefully this attempt will yield good results. I am open to suggestions / friendly critique as always. Cheers!

Thank you Dennis! I was born just north of you at DuPage county hospital in Winfield. My family lived in Wheaton and Naperville before moving out west to Arizona. Small world! I have an assortment of Panzers and a nice Sherman Vc Firefly that one day may make it to my workbench. I am sure I will ask for help since armor is a much different beast than aircraft. And thanks for the info Re: @Nick Millman Thank you Jamie. I must say that the Colourcoats line of paints are world class. I just discovered them about 6 months ago and I absolutely love them. Let's just say that I am a bit neurotic about color accuracy and "correctness". It is clear that the Colourcoats line has been well researched for accuracy. I sleep much better at night knowing my colors are just right! I plan on using the ACJ12 green/gray as the base and ACJ09 for the mottle on my Ki-45 project. I look forward to posting pics of the build as I progress. Thank you for the welcome Scimitar! As much as I would like to take credit for the kit in 1/72, it is in fact a 1/32 kit. Here is another photo I took the day of the competition:

Greetings all! I am very happy to join your wonderful community of fellow modeling enthusiasts. Like many of you, I started building kits (horribly) at a young age. After taking many years off from the hobby, I have delved back in, and have been building kits for the past five years or so. I kept coming across Britmodeller through various Google searches for kit reviews, "how-to" help, as well as "What is the 'correct' color for RAF Ocean Gray?" type questions. I have been consistently impressed with the wealth and breadth of knowledge displayed by the community members here. So I finally decided to take the plunge and join up. I would like to take a moment to say hello to Mr. Nick Millman and say thank you for all of your outstanding work. I have found your postings here and on your Aviation of Japan blog to be of tremendous assistance. My primary interests are 1/72 scale WW2 fighter aircraft. 1/72 scale is better suited for collecting in numbers and the build times are greatly reduced. Although the scale does not offer the superb detail of the larger 1/32 kits. I also have a small stash of 1/72 scale modern jet fighters, 1/35 scale armor, and 1/700 scale ships. I keep coming back to the 1/72 scale WW2 prop fighters though! Currently I am on a Japanese streak, hence my appreciation for the Aviation of Japan blog. Currently, there is a Ki-45 and a Ki-61 on my workbench. Both are in the in the assembly / seam filling & sanding phase. I intend to do a natural metal finish for the Ki-61, so the endless sanding and polishing is becoming quite maddening! About two years ago, I entered a 1/72 MiG-25 in a local hobby shop contest. The head judge was very complimentary of my work and he encouraged me to join the local IPMS chapter and participate in their contests. I am so glad that I did. He helped give me the confidence to put myself out there and improve my work. One month ago today, my Tamiya A6M2b Zero won first place in the 1/32 scale class at the IPMS ModelZona regional contest. The kit is finished in Sovereign Hobbies Colourcoats enamels faded down with a little flat white for weathering. I wanted to give the Zero a good weathering, but from research, I learned that the Pearl Harbor attackers used relatively new aircraft that were not yet extensively weathered. Despite that, I gave the aircraft as much weathering as I dared, and told myself that the kit would represent an aircraft flown during the battle of the Coral Sea or the Battle of the Eastern Solomons. Although I have no evidence to back that up! Many of the tips and tricks I used to complete the kit were learned from this forum. So for that, I would like to offer a sincere "Thank you" to the community!