My current Aircraft builds (WIP)

[Elastirion]

Hi!
As promised in my introductory topic I'm going to show some of my work now. After building some models as a kid and in my teens, I came back into the hobby quite recently. I come from the miniature painting hobby, so modeling per se is not new for me, but oh' boy, are there differences!

Right now I'm working on three different models, a F/A-18E Super Hornet (1/72 Revell), a Space Shuttle & NASA Transport (1/288 Academy) and a P-51D Mustang (1/72 Academy). I startet with the Hornet but right now I'd say the Shuttle Transport is the furthest along or so I thought, before I primed it and saw the defects. :-[ The Mustang is still mostly in it's sprue, some parts are primed, so not much to see there.

The Super Hornet:

I startet this right out of the box without looking at any reference which I know now, was a mistake. So I pretty much screwed up the cockpit. It's taped up for paining, so I can't show how much. ;D

I glued it together as far as I dared and primed it yesterday. I rewachted DreamKnights tutorials on airbrushing so it went quite good. I used Vallejo acrylic polyurethane primer grey.





I went on several reference sites recently and dowloaded some pictures. I also found matching colours, a dark and light ghost grey. I use mainly Vallejo colours, because that's what I have from painting minis. I need to do some masking and may be able to paint some of it thursday. Unfortunately a have the early morning shift at work right now and since I am no morning person I'm not of much use after.

 

[Elastirion]

The Shuttle and Transport

Some of you might know this piece of garbage from some of grendels videos and posts. I went and bought it anyway stupid as I am. To get decent sci-fi/ spaceish models around here is a bit trickey. I tried to get a Millennium Falcon before the group build, no way. AMT/MPC-stuff you find on ebay in the states is quite pricey over here. Never I am going to touch one of these Revell Star Wars snap crap again!!! So for less than 8 € I thought... nothing, obiously.







I filled seams and sanded for ours or days actually. It looked quite promising at first. The big seam around the body seemed gone. I tried to fill in the windows on the upper deck because on the original transport they are not there. The needed to be closed because of stability issues with the close-by mounting point for the shuttle I believe. In hindsight I should have backed-up the windows with some styrene before filling. :
After filling and sanding I tried to rescribe the panel lines. I couldn't find any Dymo tape, so I tried to use a flexible plastic ruler and some other stuff, but that did not work out. Unfortunately I realized only after priming how much I ruined that lines.
I tried to prime the Boing with Mr. Base White 1000 which didn't work well. I'm quite sure because I used it wrongly and I had problems because the model got loose from the stick I mounted it on for painting. I smeared the paint grabbing it. I primed the Shuttle with Games Workshop Skull White, which is what I use to prime miniatures and that worked quite good. I'm sure, that is because I'm used to working with it.








The Shuttle had different problems, large gaps between under and upper side and between the main body and the engine cover. I am not quite sure how to deal with the latter.

Next I am going to sand the Boing again, fill up the panel lines I screwed up and go over the model mm by mm, then repriming. With the airbush this time. I am tempted to leave the Shuttle as is an go on taping it up for the black. :-\

Lessons learned:
- Listen when someone tells you a model is crap!
- Seamfilling... when you think your done, start over!
- Get some dymotape moron! Your panellines suck!

 

[Quaralane]

Those are looking pretty good so far

 

[Bouryaki]

Hi Elastirion,

Your putting some hard yards into these kits, but the end result will be great. I see your using Mr Base White 1000, let me know when you figure out how to use it correctly. When I try to apply it the brush almost immediately starts to clog up.

I'll keep an eye on these builds.


Regards,

Craig.


PS. I just did a deeper search of SMA and found this link to a tutorial

Here is a link to a good article about Mr. Surfacer. I have been curious about this product for a while now, and thanks to this article I now know much more about it:

http://www.swannysmodels.com/Surfacer.html

 

[Elastirion]

Well it's not much to see yet. Question: Between washing the panellines and preshading what is better to use or can you/ should you use both together? I don't think on the Boing at this scale the lines would be very prominent, but I would like to try something with the Hornet.

@Bouryaki
I used Mr Base white from the rattlecan so I don't know how it applies with brush. I think I'll stick to the Vallejo primer from now on. Mr surfacer is unfortunately not available in Europe due to REACH, the new european guidelines about chemical registration. Couldn't get Tamiya extra thin cement here either 'til about 3 weeks ago. Ordered Mikro Krystal Klear from god knows where... Hate REACH!!!
Have Mr Dessolved Putty though My new favourite is the new Vallejo plastic puty, works like a charme.

 

[Myke]

Some nice starts to those kits. On military aircraft I always preshade and use a panel line wash. I preshade areas other than panel lines too in order to bring out the staining you see on naval aircraft, and to give a primarily gray aircraft some depth and dimension. It doesn't take much (just a darker gray underneath the base coat) to bring out the preshaded areas.

Good luck, looking forward to seeing those finished.

 

[Elastirion]

Thanks. I will try preshading and washes on the hornet then. I already bought some oilpaint, only need some thinner. Sadly no modelling today :'( or was there....? I built a kitchen cupboard 1/1 scale ;D

Greets, Sarah.

 

[Myke]

I prefer more of a 1/32 or 1/24 scale tops in my cupboards.

 

[Grendels]

A good start to those kits. One thing about building a crap kit, is that it will really help your skills out. Once you get good at the bad kits, the good kits are a real joy!

Just stay away from the kits I choose to build, I think I have a knack for finding the bad ones.....

 

[Chiefpettyofficer]

A Cupboard? IKEA lässt grüssen!

I like the Boeing Shuttle Carrier, but I will buy the new Hasegawa Kit

 

[13aceofspades13]

looks like some interesting builds going on.

 

[Elastirion]

Thanks guys!
Didn't get much modelling done over the last week, but I have the next week off work so I plan on doing quite a lot. I startet putting the Mustang together and painting the cockpit. I am going to post some pictures when I'm further along. I tried to preshade the Hornet and made quite a mess of things. I definetly need to work on my AB-skills, also I need to get a new gun. I have my eyes on a Badger Patriot, but that has got to wait till after Christmas or my birthday in january.
Right at this moment I'm really not in the mood for the Shuttle Carrier, the thing is too frustrating right now. On the other hand I really want to finish a model soon. I am a master in starting like a thousand projects and have them gathering dust somewhere in different states of completion. Also have I have my WHF Dwarves which take up a lot of my modelling time, some minis I have to paint for D&D and an Arachnarok Spider for a friend's birthday... Shouldn't a hobby be fun?

@Grendels The Mustang might be a good one if I stopped loosing parts.... :-[

@Chiefpettyofficer Nö, schlimmer... Roller. IKEA's assembly instructions at least resemble the thing you're putting together... loooong story! To much OT.

@Myke Well, I would love to try a smaller scale but my roommate pointed out that the options for interior detailing dwindle the smaller the scale and she wouldn't go for it.

 

[Elastirion]

Hi!
So managed to get the cockpit of my Mustang nearly finished and took some pictures. It is 1/72 scale and my first so be gentle :

Here is the seat mounted:

By elastirion at 2011-10-16

After looking at some photo reference, I decided to go with a wooden floor. I tried to create some texture by scraping the floorpart with a finesaw and painted it with different browntones. After painting the basecolours some by airbrush most by regular brush, I washed the whole thing with GW Badab Black and drybrushed some areas. I painted some switches red and white to accentuate some detail.The seatbelts are really poor so I blacklined them to make them stand out.

Both sidewalls:

By elastirion at 2011-10-16

[

By elastirion at 2011-10-16

Now I have a problem. The mainpanel has pretty much the same kind of details to the instruments as the sidewalls, but there is a decal for it on the decalsheet. Unfortunately the decal doesen't fit the raised detail on the panel. As I understand it, it should...???

By elastirion at 2011-10-16

I would be glad for any suggestions to procede.

Thank you very much.

Bye, Sarah.

 

[Quaralane]

Excellent work for 1/72 scale.

 

[Chiefpettyofficer]

Excellent work for 1/72 scale.

I agree, awesome work for that scale.

 

[Chris S]

Hi Sarah , My sister is called Sarah too ;D

Anyhoo ...Nice work on that cockpit ,especially at that scale . As for the dash decal , I would forget about the decal . Put a dark wash over the panel ,then gently drybrush the raised detail to make it pop out a bit ,at that scale you cant see the instruments anyway ,but this will look convincing when viewed through the glass

Chris.

 

[Elastirion]

Thanks, I think, that is exactly what I will do. I plan on building the canopy closed anyway. But that is for tomorrow... now off to bed.

Greets, Sarah.

 

[Myke]

I would agree with Chris. Those instruments are so hard to see in that scale, and it looks like you would have to sand it smooth to get the decal to sit on there properly.

Everything is looking great!!

 

[Chiefpettyofficer]

Now I have a problem. The mainpanel has pretty much the same kind of details to the instruments as the sidewalls, but there is a decal for it on the decalsheet. Unfortunately the decal doesen't fit the raised detail on the panel. As I understand it, it should...???

The decal doesnt fit, indeed. You should drybrush the edges and add some details with a small brush and different colors.
Trockenmalen und nachzeichnen. Sieht auch gut aus.

 

[Elastirion]

As by your suggestion I drybrushed the dashboard and added some detail. I even glosscoated some of the round displays to make them look like glass... I think, I went a little overboard... ;D not that you could see any of this.

By elastirion at 2011-10-17

Looks better in nature than on the photos, because I had to cranck up light and contrast to make at least something visible.

Now, off to glueing the whole thing together and never see it again. ;D