spejic

You can coat clear parts in gloss finish (and it might help make clear parts more clear), but flat will turn them opaque. That would usually be terrible, but there are occasions you want that. If you are making a house for a diorama with lights behind the window but you don't want people to see inside the house you can cover them in a flat coat to frost them.

It's possible to spray complicated sticky-out bits properly on the model. Just use low pressure and keep hitting it from every possible angle. You are better off moving the airplane and keeping the airbrush still because it's awfully easy to spill the contents of the airbrush cup on the model by moving it too much (I learned the hard way so you don't have to). The larger the model the harder that is, so I'd also do the landing gear separately first in 1/48. You may need to spray again after the gear is installed to cover any glue showing from installing the gear and doors. If you've never sprayed a flat before, try it on a scrap model first. You need to find out how much to spray to get the flatness level you want without the fogging you will get if you spray too much. I recommend spraying multiple thin coats.

You did a very nice job on all three Skyhawks, especially with modifying the paint to both make the decals show up properly and still look right. I really like the little details you added, like the brake lines and the canopy hooks, and the larger elements that people often miss like that band around the fuselage belly by the tailhook.

Yeah. That gives us the time to complete, like, two more models.

Take a pin or other sharp implement and lightly score all the panel lines. That should give the wash some grip. Alternately, use some other kind of implement to clean the wash that doesn't get into the panel lines. Try a coffee filter, which does not leave fibers behind and has no give so it will stay on the high surfaces. Fold it a few times you have a kind of paper block.

This is very well done. The fix for the slat wells looks flawless. The wash is just right.

I try to match the colors of the pre-printed part, which can lead to some weird paint choices. I have the Eduard's set for the A-4 Skyhawk, and it wasn't even close to the correct FS36231. It is instead a dead match to RLM 76.

If the search area is small, I will take some masking tape and tap it down on the carpet.

Yes - I checked my TA-4J pictures and saw some of them had this flange as well even though they were never upengined. There doesn't seem to be any pattern as to when or if they got the flange either. If A-4F's got the flange as part of the engine upgrade (and every certain A-4F+ I've seen has the flange), then at least we can say an aircraft without the flange is not a Super Fox. There is nothing about the antennas or cooling intakes or vents that indicate what variety of A-4 it is as far as I could see except for the fin-tip ECM, but not every upengined A-4F got (or kept) that. I'm now thinking that more than a few models of A-4F's out there incorrectly have the narrower intakes. If it's before 1972, it's got narrow intakes. If it has a hot dog, it's got wide intakes. Anything else, you better hope there are clear photographs.

What's weird is that this is part of the TA-4J sprue. I wonder why they went to the trouble of making a new metal part when they could have just included a sprue they've already designed which is made of cheap, cheap plastic.

I can't find one, but it seems that 2/3rds of all A-4F's had the conversion done. It's usually hard to tell in photos what kind of intake the aircraft is sporting, so I would look at the exhaust. The up-engined A-4F's exhaust will have a little flange at the end instead of being a smooth cone. This part is also on sprue Q.

The Furball decal set has a low-viz scheme for a Super Fox from VMA-142. Initially I was excited because the aircraft (155028) was also used by VMA-133, which is my strong preference, but VMA-142 used very light markings, not the more standard varieties used in VMA-133 at the time. But the set has so many numbers you can probably cobble something together.

There are many different techniques. They generally start with a light wood color for the whole deck and then various techniques to vary the colors (just using washes, masking planks with itty bitty bits of tape and overpainting many times, highlighting individual planks with colored pencil, so on). However these are mostly for battleships whose decks are weathered and more built for practicality than looks. The Titanic's deck is remarkably uniform in color with wood that had a very tight grain so there isn't much you can do at that scale. If the model has raised planking detail you might try picking it out with a near-black. There are many period pictures of the deck, and you can take some hints from the Titanic movie as well.

I think so too. I tested all the glues and similar substances I have with the pigments I have. I dropped them onto the test surface as a single bead to see what kind of shape they retain when the dry. Here are the results: PVA CONTROL smooth and rounded arcylic does not mix enamel really does not mix watercolor tube dries smooth and round, but noticibly weaker pastel dust almost works. dries flat and lumpy but strong two-part epoxy CONTROL smooth and slightly rounded arcylic does not mix enamel almost works. slightly weaker, dries flatter watercolor tube does not mix pastel dust works. similar shape and strength Acrylic gloss medium CONTROL smooth and rounded arcylic works, but much flatter in shape enamel does not mix watercolor tube does not mix pastel dust does not mix well, dries lumpy Future CONTROL smooth and totally flat arcylic works, a little gummy enamel does not mix watercolor tube does not mix pastel dust does not mix well Testors non-toxic tube glue CONTROL smooth and very flat arcylic does not mix enamel mixes, but looses lots of its adhesion to plastic watercolor tube does not mix at all pastel dust mixes, but looses lots of its adhesion to plastic cyanoacrylate CONTROL dries dusty and slightly rounded arcylic does not mix at all enamel does not mix at all watercolor tube they violently repell each other pastel dust does not mix at all I think two-part epoxy and pastel dust will work for what I need. I just have to figure out how to hold the antenna in place for half an hour while it dries.

You combine a prop modeler's eye for what is photogenic with a hobby modeler's concern for detail. I love the feeling of scale these additions create.