Eurofighter 1:72

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Hello everyone!

 

Here’s my Hasegawa 1:72 Eurofighter.

 

Recently I got into scale model building and started on my first model.

It was quite the bumpy ride to this stage, but I finally confident enough it’s going anywhere in order to share it.

 

Still wip, the load out will be Taurus and Iris-T in addition to the fuel tank. That’s my best guess of a how a long range combat Taurus mission would like with a Eurofighter. (Any insight welcome whether this is realistic)

Also I’ll probably refine the oil weathering a bit more.

 

A little question at this point:

I gloss varnished the decals and sanded them down before applying the mat coat.

However to achieve the right glossiness the coat was much thinner than anticipated and now some ugly specularity differences from the decal outline is showing.. ><
I’m leaning towards leaving them and doing better on the next model, but does anyone have experience with sanding down mat varnish to reapply a coat of gloss and then mat again?

I have the feeling it would ruin more than do good?

 

Looking forward to what you think!

 

Will post a little summary of all the scratch building I did on this one if you’re interested. : )

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[CH-53D]

Very nice indeed!

 

Your first model?  😮  Most impressive, it looks like you'd been building for years!

 

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Thank you a lot!

 

It involved a lot of watching youtube tutorials and lurking this forum.. : D

 

Though I had to redo several steps and ended up buying the kit twice because I ruined the canopy. ><

 

Next kit will go much smoother I hope

 

[Vultures1]

That's really impressive work, well done!

[SebTartar]

I would leave it as is. You might do more harm than good trying to fix it.

Even more when: considering that:

1. I cannot see the "defect" you mention on the close-up pictures you posted

2. This is a very good result for a first model

Edited May 13, 2024 by SebTartar

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@SebTartar you can see it here, different color around the “no step” decals:

 

 

but your probably right! It’s the time to finish this and move on : )

 

[SebTartar]

OK, I see it now. You had to zoom in quite a lot, though!😉

 

And some are inside curved areas. The risk of damaging them if you sand too hard and ruining the rest of the paintjob seems to high for me.

I would leave them as they are.

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Absolutely. : )

 

In the meantime here are some wip images from the building process:

 

First of the cockpit and canopy was waaay to simple on the kit:

 

A big lesson here: details are usually smaller than you think they are.

The canopy has some interesting shapes on the inside that needed to be built.

 

Hand carved the control stick. (Also slightly too large in hindsight. But aw well..)

 

 

The biggest adjustment was by far the landing gear bay.

In the kit it’s way too flat and misses important details. So I removed everything and scratch built it.

 

Next time I’ll have to remember to take some “before” pics.. ><

 

 

Fast forward..

 

 

some small adjustments to the front bay as well.

 

some crude scratch building on the landing gear as well

 

 

Also cut away the “totally not elevators” that the Eurofighter has.

 

 

This process ended up being surprisingly painful, since I ended up adding half round material and cut away the counter part on the wing.

 

that process made them fit better in the tilted position, but it created some very ugly uneven lines in the wings that took forever to fill and clean again.. (since the material on the real wing is just too thin) D=
will have to find a different workaround next time.

 

it worked much better on the rudder:

 

 

Also added rivets lines.

in hindsight I would have to have added subtle ones on the main wings as well, but they are not as apparent there.

 

exhausts.

 

 

 

Some lines and rivets around the engines added after the first coat of primer. Those also needed a lot of cutting and filling to get them somewhat clean ><

 

and last but not least some small adjustments to the fuel tank.

 

At this stage I was pretty tense, since I spent like 6 weeks building adjustments but hadn’t started painting yet. 😅

Luckily using an airbrush felt incredibly natural right from the beginning and everything went relatively smoothly.

 

Only sanding down a first layer of varnish since I screwed up the pressure.

Some small fun moments:

 

there are some nice white lines on the inside of the canopy.

 

 

And this unnecessarily overly masked secondary color..

I was sweating like crazy when I had to remove all that tape 😂 (has done all the nice pre-shading and modulation on the main color at that point..)

 

That’s it for now!

I’ll be able to continue working on it in 3 weeks. So more updates will have to wait until then. : )

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Finally managed to make some progress on the loadout.
For the Taurus I got the very sweet ResKit set, which is super nice and highly recommended if anyone wants to build a Taurus. (The kit version doesn't even compare.. it just looks stupid next to it.)

 

Also I decided to magnetize all the weapons after all. In part to make it more resistant to parts falling off and in part because the Taurus just looks so sweet, it felt like a shame to glue it on there.
Then to calm my sense of order I decided to do the same with the Iris-T..

 

Also the mounts for the Taurus fell off in the process, so I double magnetized them.

 

 

 

 

I'll prime them first and then see if I have to fill any gaps. Part of why I paint the wings seperately.

 

Sadly I couldn't find the Eduard resin Iris-T anywhere.. so I needed to heavily adjust the kit version.

 

 

 

will have to repaint the missile rails, but I feel it's worth it.

 

 

 

 

test assembly

 

 

 

Next step primer and paint!

(curious if the steel rod will work well as attachments while airbrushing)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Paint and decals are on!
Also some subtle oil shading in the end. : )

 

 

 

 

Spent a little while painting the IRIS-T eye and sealed it with epoxy

I feel like the Taurus add a lot with their visual contrast.

 

 

Now the only thing left to do the is the final photo shoot!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ventsislav Gramatski]

Truly excellent work, and a first model at that!

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Thank you so much @Ventsislav Gramatski !

 

I think I’m quite happy with it as well in the end. : )

Certainly I’m relieved I didn‘t ruin it completely at the final stages.

Doing something for the first time on a model that you already spent that much time on it is... quite intense. 😅