Desk Flyer Posted February 20, 2021 Share Posted February 20, 2021 Good evening all, while building a project I like to have a second simpler project of let's say 'lesser importance' running in parallel. Like a B-side to the main project. So while I was building the Arado 196 for the Heller group build I confess I was having an affair with Hasegawa 🤭 Now that the A-side project is over and done, what was hiding in the shadows comes under the spotlight: The idea is as I understand this, to build a kit without having to worry about accuracy, details, sources, aftermarket products, expensive material etc. I failed. Stay tuned for a high cholesterol group build of sorts. 😉 Thanks for looking! 3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScanmanDan Posted February 21, 2021 Share Posted February 21, 2021 I look forward to seeing what you come up with. With these little beasties you can do whatever you like without fear of a single rivet counter. Have fun! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Desk Flyer Posted February 22, 2021 Author Share Posted February 22, 2021 Thank you @ScanmanDan I hope we are safe from any rivet counters here 🤭 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alt-92 Posted February 22, 2021 Share Posted February 22, 2021 AkShuALly... --- These are always for a good bit of modelling fun, though. Must dig that F-5 Egg out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim R-T-C Posted February 22, 2021 Share Posted February 22, 2021 Look forward to seeing this in construction. My wife has a small stash of these, unlike the Meng cut-and-push kits, these cut-and-paste kits are made up like normal aircraft models, so there is potential to add extra detail as you go 😉 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Desk Flyer Posted February 22, 2021 Author Share Posted February 22, 2021 Good afternoon people, I'll start with a little background story tonight. The question is why did I buy this... egg thing in the first place? Well, the simple answer is I wanted to build a Phantom. OK I'll wait for you to stop laughing. Now, I've been working on Phantoms for almost 20 years, in various roles. This prevented me from being able to build a Phantom kit as I could never be good enough to get the details right. There was no way I could come home from work, sit down in front of the bench and build anything that would satisfy me as a passable model. This torment lasted for many many years. Then one day, while swimming in the vast ocean that is the internet, I came across this new kind of fish. So apparently you could build something that can be fun, funny and above all immune to criticism even to the most formidable kind of all: self-critisism. I lurked that corner of eBay for some time and when this Hasegawa combo box appeared I let my harpoon fly so to speak and managed to grab hold of it. "Yeah, two kits, whatever, I only want the phantom" I thought. How naive I was... So the box arrived and there was also a Spook figure included! Ha! Looking at the sprues I couldn't resist building the little Eagle as well. True to the expectations, these kits are for a quick, simple and fun build. You sit down to have a look and before you know it you get... At this point I should have seen this for what it was. An addiction in its early stage. But I went on... What bugged me the most at this point was that the Phantom came with only one pilot. I mean OK it might not even have ailerons or nothing much of anything but one pilot??? Un-acceptable! So first the aft cockpit was dug out... Then the Phantom had a coat of matt black primer and the pilot gained some character... So the Eagle pilot was recruited and retrained to become a Phantom backseater! Had it not been for the paint drying time, the washes etc this could have been done in a couple of hours but in real life it took me almost a week. But the most time consuming job by far was masking the inside of the canopies! I'm talking about days for each canopy. Anyway, the inside masks were removed and the canopy was persuaded to stay attached to the rest of the model... Afterwards, filling the small gap around the canopy meant some of the masks had to come off... ...and were replaced by new maskol... Meanwhile, I couldn't stand the sight of the empty Eagle cockpit. So I got me a cheap resin 1/48 ACES seat of eBay, I cut it, primed it, painted it, gloss coated it, washed it, drybrushed it until I was pleased with it. After all this is just an eggplane, right? Then I more or less made it fit inside the cockpit... and then I reached the point where I had to have the same conversation with the Eagle canopy too. I hope you like this build so far. I'll be back with more soul-searching confessions soon. As always, thank you for looking and thank you for leaving a comment. 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Desk Flyer Posted February 27, 2021 Author Share Posted February 27, 2021 Good evening people, Here's another update you didn't ask for 🙂 So there is another reason I decided to build these eggs. I wanted to try a few new tricks (well, new to me anyway). The problem is I can't just use a kit as a test dummy; I can't pull a kit out of the stash, no matter how old or "bad" it may be, half build it and make tests on it. I just can't. I try new things only on actual, 'proper' builds. A character flaw for sure but there you have it. The F-4E & F-15 eggs will be used as testbeds for new pre-shading and post shading techniques. And above all, colour modulation using oils. And, as both have some unpainted surfaces, I want to have a go at that too before I commit to a 'real' F-15 and/or F-4 build. But then I realised that this wasn't enough if I were to build a Natural Metal Finish model like an F-84 or F-86. Or at least that's my excuse for adopting a third egg... I am well and truly hooked. Whatever the reason for getting it, that EgG-15 will be used for trying my first NMF. But now back to the MDD eggs. I decided I was going to build a standard two grey JSDAF F-15 with my egg. With the canopy attached and masked, it was time for primer and then some pre-shading. I decided to try other colours as well this time and especially brown. As for the phantom I decided to build it as an Aegean Blue / silver Hellenic Air Force example. I wanted to try a matt black primer as a base and see how I can work on that. While I was to try some elaborate airbrushing on the top surfaces, I thought I should try some marbling for the lower surfaces: Using various degrees of coverage on the black base and then variations of the FS35164 paint (+1 drop of white, +1 drop of blue etc) I reached a somewhat interesting result to try the oils on top, at a later stage: I then masked the model... and sprayed the silver... The marbling preshading was completely covered and not a trace of this shines through now. Also, notice how easily you can see where putty has been used... Hmmmm... Some lessons to be learned here. The F-15 went on much better though. Light grey first, then masking... then the blue-ish grey and un-masking... to reveal a generally speaking successful paint scheme... More to come. In the next episode the EgG-15 comes in the build. So stay tuned. As always, thank you for looking and thank you for leaving a comment. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete in Lincs Posted February 28, 2021 Share Posted February 28, 2021 It certainly looks like you're enjoying yourself with these whilst learning as you go. Nothing wrong with that at all. I look forward to more. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Desk Flyer Posted February 28, 2021 Author Share Posted February 28, 2021 Thank you @Pete in Lincs more experimenting to come. 😉 Now I'm looking for excuses to buy more eggs 😇 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Quack Posted February 28, 2021 Share Posted February 28, 2021 Will they all fit in one basket? Very tempted by these - they look like a lot of fun. Q 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Desk Flyer Posted March 14, 2021 Author Share Posted March 14, 2021 Hello people, making slow progress or no progress at all these days. But still I managed to get enough done to warrant an update. So I painted the Phantom's radome using some rubber black... And then a couple of layers of gloss coat were applied on the Phantom... ...and on the Eagle... And after it dried it was time for the decals... of which there were more than I expected... and then it was time for the Phantom decals... it was a mix-and-match affair really... After both eggs were sprayed with another coat of gloss varnish, they were masked for painting the bare metal areas... I decided to use Jallejo Metal color for the F-15 and Mr. Metal Color for the Phantom. These went on without a problem. and on the Phantom, too. But when I pulled the masking tape off, the numbers went with it 🤬 Now I need to repair that before going ahead... Trouble is I don't think I have another set of numbers 🥺 Next comes the weathering and oil paint experiments. Thanks for looking and thank you for commenting. 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heloman1 Posted March 15, 2021 Share Posted March 15, 2021 Love Egg Planes, cracking build... Colin 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alhenderson Posted March 15, 2021 Share Posted March 15, 2021 These are so cool - I want one now! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keif Posted March 15, 2021 Share Posted March 15, 2021 I'm with you for the Eggs. My first two builds after a long break and a bit of Lockdown sanity were a Meng Lancaster and a Hasegawa SR-71. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Desk Flyer Posted March 15, 2021 Author Share Posted March 15, 2021 6 hours ago, Keif said: I'm with you for the Eggs. My first two builds after a long break and a bit of Lockdown sanity were a Meng Lancaster and a Hasegawa SR-71. Very nice! That SR-71 Blackegg looks particularly yummy! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alhenderson Posted March 15, 2021 Share Posted March 15, 2021 That Egg Lancaster looks so cute 😍 I can see the appeal of these for something fun to do without any stress or pressure.. Al 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
72modeler Posted March 16, 2021 Share Posted March 16, 2021 I like my AAMRAM and eggs over easy, please! Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
k5054nz Posted March 17, 2021 Share Posted March 17, 2021 These are gorgeous! You're making it hard for me to resist getting into these. I've had a secret desire to do an F-14 and a "MiG-28"... On 3/16/2021 at 4:11 AM, Keif said: My first two builds after a long break and a bit of Lockdown sanity were a Meng Lancaster and a Hasegawa SR-71. I remember when the Mengs first came out there was a Mosquito in the instructions(?) somewhere. I'm really hanging out for that to happen! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Desk Flyer Posted April 3, 2021 Author Share Posted April 3, 2021 Hello everyone, the Easter holidays are upon us so here's something... seasonal 🙂 Picking up from where I left it, the damaged decals were repaired and more gloss varnished was applied. When that dried it was time for the weathering... I did some light oil application on the F-15 before moving on to the Phantom... But experimenting with oils was a major point with this build. So on the Phantom I first sprayed some black over the tail end... And then the oils came out. Earth tones for the under surfaces... Blue and black tones for the upper surfaces... Although this is experimenting I wasn't at all satisfied with the results of my handiwork. Anyway, I had enough and decided to close this build before I did any more damage. Matt coats were applied on both eggs in thin layers and then again on the next day. When everything was dry, the F-15 got it's legs The masking tape was removed and here it is: And here is the completed Phantom: So there you go. Happy Easter everyone! 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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