Revell 1/48 F-5F, a Sundowners Aggressor FINISHED

[modelling minion]

Definitely moving in the right direction Jack, very nice.

 

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[Robert Stuart]

Interesting, with good progress, Jack.
Don't envy you, painting white over red - but it worked on the black, so should be fine.

[Sam]

Great job in fixing the horrible „fits“!

 

I think it‘s the right idea to spray the fin instead of using the decals. The larger the decal, the better you‘re off spraying it on yourself. 
 

Sam

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

When I tried to paint mine 4 years ago It was not an easy solution as the masking kept shifting. I went through about 1/2 dozen repaints and gave up in the end. The stripes would inevitably either be squiggly or not equal in the proportions. So if you pull this off you're a better man than me. 

[jackroadkill]

13 hours ago, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

When I tried to paint mine 4 years ago It was not an easy solution as the masking kept shifting. I went through about 1/2 dozen repaints and gave up in the end. The stripes would inevitably either be squiggly or not equal in the proportions. So if you pull this off you're a better man than me. 

 

I think I'll be resorting to the white tack sausages and paper method.  However, I'm more than aware that this scheme may be accompanied by major headaches.

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

2 hours ago, jackroadkill said:

 

I think I'll be resorting to the white tack sausages and paper method.  However, I'm more than aware that this scheme may be accompanied by major headaches.

wrong thread please hide. 

Edited August 7, 2022 by Corsairfoxfouruncle

[jackroadkill]

Sorry guys, it's been a busy few weeks and I haven't done much on the build.  However, after work comes play, and I'm now on holiday for a few days.  This morning I've got some light grey on to the model, and I don't think it looks too bad:

 

 

I might get some more done in the next couple of days, you never know!

 

Cheers,

 

JRK

[modelling minion]

I think the grey looks very good.

Hopefully you will get the opportunity to get the other colours on too.

 

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[Robert Stuart]

Progress is progress, and that grey looks good.

[John Ballman]

Keep up the good work, looks like it is heading in the right direction. Thanks for sharing

JB

[jackroadkill]

Tonight (today?) Matthew, I will be finding out how hard freehand camo spraying is.  This in itself didn't come as much of a surprise, given that airbrushing in general takes time, preparation and concentration in equal measure to do a good job of.  What did come as a surprise, although perhaps it shouldn't have, was that Revell's painting guide is hopeless - there are panel lines shown on the guide that don't exist on the model, and vice versa.  I've done my best but have already decided that I'll need to do some touching up before clear-coating, and that's with only two of the three colours sprayed:

 

 

 

As you can see, it's not perfect although it is coming along.  Hopefully I can get the third shade of grey on soon, and then there'll be the mask to make for the fin insignia.  At some point I'll need to NMF the engine exhaust cowlings and chute cover, too.

 

I'm getting the feeling that I'm falling behind a little, as so many of the builders involved in this GB are really making quick progress.  I suspect that some of this is to do with my use of enamels but also down to my inexperience with schemes of this type.  Oh well, I'll get there in the end.  Another issue could well be tail-sitting; I've realised this morning that a lot of other builders are putting lead weights into the nose, and there's no mention of this in Revell's instructions. Fortunately one of my other hobbies involves accelerating lead shot down pipes at very high speeds, so I might be able to feed some shot in through the cannon ports if this turns out to be a problem.

 

Cheers,

 

JRK

[81-er]

It's looking good, Jack. I've yet to attempt freehand camo, so you have my admiration for having a go! As a general rule of thumb, anything with a tricycle undercarriage will need weight ahead of the main gear to avoid a tail-sitter. Even when the instructions give you the weight, I'd always view it as advisory anyway. I think I ended up with double Revell's suggestion in my Ar 555

 

James

[jackroadkill]

2 minutes ago, 81-er said:

As a general rule of thumb, anything with a tricycle undercarriage will need weight ahead of the main gear to avoid a tail-sitter.

 

Thanks James - I'll remember that.  It seems like a good maxim to follow.

[modelling minion]

I think your freehand camo looks pretty good, its something that i can't do which is why I use masks of one variety or another.

You are not falling behind and there is plenty of time left in the GB so theres no need to rush.

 

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[jackroadkill]

Woo, paint!!  It needs a bit of sorting (starboard wing, darker grey, for example) but you get the general idea.  The next job is to flip it over and paint the undersides.

 

 

The lack of engraved panel lines has been causing me to fret a bit in terms of how I'd get some colour differentiation in there, but so far the black-basing and using multiple fine coats of each shade seems to be paying off.  I don't know if I'll do much in the way of post-shading yet, but we'll see.

 

Onwards and upwards....

 

Cheers,

 

JRK

[modelling minion]

Really nice work on the painting, the black base has given some tonal variation to the colours and I think it has worked very well.

 

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[Robert Stuart]

Woo, nice!!!
Love the scheme, you've done very well.

[Shalako]

2 hours ago, jackroadkill said:

 

Cheers,

 

JRK

Was it cloudy when you took the photo outside, because all of them look kind of 'bluish'.

 

Cheers,

 

Bill

[jackroadkill]

6 minutes ago, Shalako said:

Was it cloudy when you took the photo outside, because all of them look kind of 'bluish'.

 

Cheers,

 

Bill

 

Hi Bill, somehow they greys do look a lot bluer in the picture than they do in reality.  It doesn't help that I only have a cruddy iPhone camera to take pictures on.  Hopefully in the next photos you see the greys will be a bit more representative.

[jackroadkill]

3 hours ago, jackroadkill said:

The next job is to flip it over and paint the undersides.

 

 

Okay, so I lied.  Unintentionally.  I've really cracked on today with three of my builds (this one, the Stuka and the resurrected Bf110E) and it seems that progress can be hard to stop if one build enough momentum.  I saw this part of the job giving me the eye and just had to crack on with it:

 

 

Previously I had photocopied the fin insignia decals with a view to using them to make spraying masks (see above) because I didn't want to use the decals, which I felt wouldn't look good.  This afternoon I PVA'd the cut-out photocopies to some left over masking vinyl and started to cut.

 

 

It turns out that using a new scalpel blade gives better results (top) than an old one (bottom).  Who knew?!  The vinyl itself is all crisply cut, the raggedness on the starboard side one is just the paper backing.  Hopefully they'll deliver a good result when I come to use them on the fin, which shouldn't be too far in the future (touch wood).

 

Cheers,

 

JRK

[Robert Stuart]

Those suns look promising.
Going to keep a close eye on this, I have a similar problem.

[modelling minion]

Nice job on the masking, looks like it should work well.

 

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[jackroadkill]

I managed to get the undersides sprayed whilst doing other things this lunchtime.  Not a stunning picture, and not particularly fascinating, but hey...:

 

 

Cheers,

 

JRK

[Robert Stuart]

Hey, its progress.
Looks good to me.  Topside soon?

[modelling minion]

Its a good picture, and shows what a good job you have done on spraying.

 

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