Calum

After a few weeks of and on I've finished the painting. I made all the masks for the marking and painted them using Tamiya mixes for the red and blue along MRP for the yellow. This is the first full mask job I've done and I'm pretty happy. I'm not sure I'll bother for my usual 48 scale subjects but I think it's worth the effort in 32 scale. I applied some weathering with various airbrush splatter masks. The original wing root chipping was a mixture of masking frisket applied before the paint and a bit of the hairspray technique. I was pretty happy with what I had Unfortunately when painting the no step lines the masking tape pulled off much of the top coat. I put this down to the hairspray under the paint. It had been down for a month or so, so I was a bit surprised to see this. It also pulled some off over the gun bulge. Fortunately the top coats were so thin the repair was relatively straight forward. I just re sprayed the camo, sanded it a bit and touched up some more. then used a stiff brush and toothpick to scrub away the top coat (again) to get some chipping.

The Hasegawa A-4 whilst a good kit has plenty of room for improvement. The slats, poor fitting speedbrakes, intakes and tail inserts are just a few areas that can be improved on

I first painted the entire model Tamiya airframe silver AS 12 upper surfaces ocean grey. I then applied some liquid masking Frisket with a sponge in the wing root. Not being sure if this would work I also applied some hair spray. Next was the lower surface medium sea grey. I used Medium Sea grey C363 from Mr Color. I then painted all the upper surfaces Ocean Grey using AS10 from Tamiya and Ocean Grey C362 from Mr Color using a airbrush stencil to add some random colour patterns To get a slightly feathered edge I scaled up the instructions and printed them out on card (not paper). The card extra rigidity means the paint coming out of the airbrush doesn't push the edge down onto the model I then sprayed the Dark green. I used Mr Color 361 RAF dark green. A few areas were also hit wiht Tamiya XF 81 I also used the stencils do add some colour variation. I was pretty happy with the result overall. The masking Frisket came of easily but I did a bit of scrubbing just to add a bit more chipping.

Thanks John.

Thanks Jens, The conversion kit is one of the simplest around. And it's really up to the modeller how well it goes in. I could ahve don a better job but under hte darker camo it looks good enough for me. Thanks Anthony. I've got Johnny Checketts book and will definitely do his D day Vc machine. But probably in 1/48 once Eduard release their promised V series kit (C'mon Eduard). I'm hoping to get to Omaka 2021 so perhaps we can catch up then.

It's been a long time between updates but I have been working slowly on the build. The Alley Cat W wing conversion is pretty straight forward. Fit is pretty good, as long as you take care removing it from the casting remnants. I glued the pieces in before I joined the wing halves. I used the gear bay pieces with the ovals for the wheels but I probably shouldn't have as I wasn't intending to fit the corresponding ovals on the upper wings Next was the tail planes. In hindsight I think I may not have used the correct ones for the aircraft I'm modelling but never mind.. It;s to late to change it. Still there is no way I can be 100 % certain which tailplanes where fitted to this aircraft during he war so no sleep is being lost. The worst fit issue I encountered was the gun inserts. I ended up using 0.040 "thou card to try and force things into place. This was partially successful. I started on the engine next. I'm going to glue the cowls so I intend to fit the parts I need Some spot priming with AS 12 to see what needs some work. Everything looks OK so far. Rather than use the Alley Cat resin barrels, which are for the shorter later E wing aircraft I used the early E wing barrels from master models. A worthwhile upgrade IMHO

Fantastic build

The Kinetic decals have better colours for the Aussie Roundels than what Caracal depict

Looks great. Love that weathering effects you've managed to achieve there.

Great paintwork. You really nailed that

That wasn't me.. You're confused

Better looking than the Comanche although you can see the resemblance

Nice work mate. I like that scheme with the sharks mouth on the P51. Nicely photographed as well, all my training seems to be paying off

Looks effective and quite controllable. I guess sealing is done with Pigment fixer then a flat coat. Just like you'd do with armour

You'd have never have built them anyway