CatcliffeDemon

That's a super looking MiG, love it.

Looking into the crystal ball, I see one of these in my future for sure! Great build, really nice job.

That's a great looking Corsair II. The photographs are awesome too, really showing off the model perfectly.

Thanks, yes, while the references I have weren't explicit in saying that, I had come to that conclusion. However, it's great to have another confirmation. Hopefully I should have my Eduard bits and airbrush in my hands either tomorrow or Friday. I've been dying to close up the fuselage and get on with getting this ready for the exterior painting. Still no luck with my "Flying Checkmates" decals so that might hold me up again in a couple of weeks. When I head "something something season" I always think Bugs and Daffy... Railway season, aircraft season, railway season, aircraft season, railway season, railway season, aircraft season, BANG!

Wow, looks great. Amazing that you've rebuilt this model twice now!

That's really nice, good to see some restrained colour on a modern jet as well. They always seem to go from the plain grey to the ridiculous with nothing in between.

Beautiful craftsmanship, the detail in the aircraft, especially the antennas and cockpits, but all over the models is breathtaking. Stunning!

That's a really nice MiG, cracking paint job as well!

That's a real beauty. Super job on the nice clean build and the fab paint scheme.

Nice painted and weathered, nicely presented and nicely photographed. Top job!

More progress from the weekend. The complex cockpit parts. I'll paint these next so the body can be closed up. There is also an Eduard Zoom set to add yet as well... The famous "I can't believe it can fly" wings under construction. Not sure how to mount the flappy things yet which is why they haven't been fixed in place yet The wingtip tanks look fantastic when built up The undercarriage gear also looks great, but I need to check against walkaround pictures before moving any further with these Happy with the way this is coming together so far. I'll dig out the target tow next I think!

So I began working in anger on my Eiko for a few hours this weekend and this is the progress I had made by today. As usual for the more current Hasegawa kits it really does fall together. I might add some little pipe runs and so on but this is how the model stands now. Main undercarriage bay has been fixed in place The wings slot nicely into the whole in the side of the fuselage and are locked perpendicular thanks to the tab in the bay Front wheelbay is a great fit too, with only a slight amount of material having to be removed from the base of the nose at the front to give a smooth profile The pointy nose will need some filler on the joins - there was quite a bit of flash on both halves for some reason The fuselage as it stands now. I have to do some painting before I can close things up

That looks really nice. Great paint finish really doing justice to this fascinating aircraft.

Excellent stuff, great looking Crusader!

What a stunna, love the finish. Awesome weathering job.

The hanger looks fantastic and really sets off the aircraft you've posed inside and out. Would live to see some shots with a photoshopped sky for the full effect.

Such a great looking Sabre, lovely finish for a real classic.

Beautifully finished again, real inspirational work. Love this colour scheme as well, a classic.

That's a great looking build, well done on turning out such a fine model from difficult beginningings. Excellent paint job and finish too.

This is fantastic, a great idea wonderfully excecuted. Love the duo base and the animals.

Good question, I guess I'll have a look around and see what finish other people have been achieved with the two methods and see which one best suits my limited range of ability! Here are some target tow carrying Eiko on www.916-starfighter.de http://www.916-starfighter.de/Large/Stars/wJ617.htm http://www.916-starfighter.de/Large/Stars/wJ672.htm http://www.916-starfighter.de/Large/Stars/wJ683.htm None of these are NMF though. Bonus awesome painted RNLAF example! http://www.916-starfighter.de/Large/Stars/wK6684.htm

Having made Japan my home I've been dying to build something belonging to the JASDF. With the Starfighter - also known as 'Eiko' over here - being such an iconic past member of the self-defence force fleet this GB could not have been more timely. After looking at many pictures of F-104Js, images of these aircraft carrying dart-style target tows kept cropping up. Most of us probably have several of these in the scrap box, so this seemed like an ideal opportunity to actually use one of these striking pieces of equipment! One of the reasons I got into aircraft modelling is to increase my range of modelling skills, so I've also decided to finish my F-104J in the stunning NMF that is so associated with the Starfighter. Anyway, without further ado, here are the traditional range of pictures showing the contents of the box. I also have the Eduard zoom set for the cockpit and the kabuki tape masking pack heading to Japan from back in the UK. Hopefully they should be here soon. The box itself - the Hasegawa 1/48 kit only cost about 15 quid so I'm very happy with that result. The grey plastic sprues. No additional resin bits for me, this will be a mostly OOB build. Not sure which identity to choose for this 'Eiko', although 56-8672 matches one of the target carrying aircraft I have found pictures of (from www.916-starfighter.de) so that is a good bet. The clear bits. Looking forward to getting on with this over the weekend!

Love that sepia shot, I genuinely thought that was your inspiration shot for your diorama. Awesome stuff and in such a small scale too!

That's a real cracker. Certainly a strange looking plane, but you've done a great job. Bags of character (and firepower)!

Very nice and very inspirational, I'm finding that JASDF scheme hard to resist for my own Starfighter project!