opus999 Posted July 21, 2019 Share Posted July 21, 2019 F/A-18 Hornet | 1/72 | Testors United States Navy -- VFA-25 Finished this on May 24th, 2019. This is a build that had sat 90% finished for 20 years. The full story is in my WIP. This is a model that my best friend gave me in college, having started it himself when he was 10. It happened to be a prior boxing of a model I made in High School. I almost finished it, but then put it aside and it sat for 20 years. Through some luck I found the decals to match my high school build. I built this concurrently with a Hasagawa 1/72 Hornet which I marked as a Canadian CF-188. They are both in the same build thread. Since 80's Navy birds got pretty filthy, I was able to really weather this model. I used salt weathering to get the really sea-spray worn effect. I have lots of pictures of real Hornets in my build thread that I used for reference. Some of the staining came out a little darker than I wanted, so it is still realistic, but probably as a worst case. It seems to match the photos from combat sorties more than from deployment in the '80's, but it's not completely un-realistic. Another thing to note, when I worked on this in the '90's, I sanded most of the panel lines off because I had a lot of really terrible seams that had to be filled and sanded. So, I sanded the rest of them off and then used a 0.3 pencil with a straight-edge to draw them back on at the end. I found that worked very well. I also had to fill in the gaps in between the fuselage and the Leading Edge Root Extensions (LERX) because production Hornets didn't have them and Testors hadn't corrected their molds accordingly. A huge shout-out of thanks to @jean and @Hook for pointing this out before it was too late for me to do anything about it! Finishing: Seams filled with CA (superglue) Paints: Mr. Surfacer 1500 black primer > Mr. Color C308 (top) > Mr. Color C338 (Bottom) > MRP FS35237 > various shades of Alclad (detailed in my WIP) > Mr. Surfacer 500 used to create Ablative coating on bombs Decals: Microscale 72-457 Weathering/Wear: Salt weathering after the decals were put on > Panel lines drawn on with 0.3 mm pencil > oil staining and dirt streaks with Black and Burnt Umber watercolor Paints > Tamiya weathering pastels (black) Here it is next to the one I did in High School. My high school build really shows the terrible seams in the Testors kit. And here it is next to it's sister build, the Hasagawa CF-188: Thanks for looking! Comments, questions and constructive criticism always welcome! 23 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Romeo Alpha Yankee Posted July 21, 2019 Share Posted July 21, 2019 Very Noice! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hook Posted July 21, 2019 Share Posted July 21, 2019 Spot on! Cheers, Andre 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jean Posted July 21, 2019 Share Posted July 21, 2019 It was worth the wait, as your build is absolutely gorgeous!!! Congrats! JR 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeR Posted July 21, 2019 Share Posted July 21, 2019 Nicely done! Mike. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary Brantley Posted July 21, 2019 Share Posted July 21, 2019 Cool little Hornet! 👏 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
opus999 Posted July 21, 2019 Author Share Posted July 21, 2019 Thanks for all the kind words! Both of these were challenging and fun. I'm really happy with how they turned out! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt P Posted July 21, 2019 Share Posted July 21, 2019 Very nice 👍 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMCS Posted July 21, 2019 Share Posted July 21, 2019 Lovley 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nikola Topalov Posted December 14, 2019 Share Posted December 14, 2019 Hi Opus, Very nice and subtle color variation. This I admire a lot. It looks more realistic in my opinion. That is the whole trick I think, to judge the right moment when to stop. It's a very thin line between just right and overkill. This is the artistic and talent part of our hobby, at least for the paint work. Maybe some panel line variation could do it good, but it's great as it is anyway. Good stuff! Keep it up. Cheers, Nikola 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cariado Posted December 14, 2019 Share Posted December 14, 2019 Nice result! Like your pencil panel lines technique. Appropriate for this scale IMHO. The 20 years in the making was worth the wait. Well done! 🙂 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
opus999 Posted December 15, 2019 Author Share Posted December 15, 2019 3 hours ago, Nikola Topalov said: That is the whole trick I think, to judge the right moment when to stop. I've found that's absolutely the case! I still struggle with it. In this case, the hornets were pretty dirty in real life, so I didn't have to worry too much about over doing it, but I still blended it all together with a dot filter. I'd say you're on the right track with your Zero... just need to calibrate the eye to know when enough is enough... as do I 2 hours ago, Cariado said: Nice result! Like your pencil panel lines technique. Appropriate for this scale IMHO. The 20 years in the making was worth the wait. Well done! 🙂 Thanks! I've found I really like the pencil panel line technique. I've found an even smaller pencil to do it with since I did this build. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ad-4N Posted December 16, 2019 Share Posted December 16, 2019 Hey, let me tell you, none of my high school builds matched the work you did back then. Well done. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArmouredSprue Posted December 18, 2019 Share Posted December 18, 2019 Very nice model and the story behind it. Well done Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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