trekracer20

That is a really beautiful finish, can't wait to see it done! I almost hate the thought of covering up the paint with decals!

This is really starting to come together nicely, and the re-scribed panel lines on the front end look ten times better than what you started with. Keep it up!

Well, that's pretty interesting. I will definitely have to try a similar shading technique on my next WWII build, as this looks a lot better than shaving plastic off the model and re-doing panel lines and rivets to create actual texture. Thanks for the idea!

These look good! My only critiques will be minor since these are so well done. The panel highlighting is just a little overdone for my personal taste, but that's just a preference. Given the overall weathering, you might consider applying a little wear to the propeller and leading edge of the wings, at least on the -1A. Also, the step on the wing should be filled in on these, and it generally wasn't added until after the war I believe. Looking forward to seeing more!

Wow, that's a great-looking mustang. The weathering is fantastic in my view, and the painting of the olive drab looks great without being overly stylized. My only criticism is that whenever I see a P-51 this well-done, I wish more than ever that the wing panel lines were filled in to complete the really great work. As it is, you've build a really great model and I'm looking forward to the next.

Congratulations on a great-looking Corsair! My only suggestion would be that the decals look very bright and un-faded compared to the rest of the top of the bird, and that maybe a little fading/dirtying of the white could look nice. It's hard to tell, but what I can see of the bottom/exhaust area also looks very clean compared to the effects applied to the upper half.

This looks like a tough kit to flex your muscles on unless you're willing to re-scripe panel lines, add aftermarket parts, etc. In general this looks good from the photos. I think the paint looks good. One thing you might try in the future that I only thought of after reading your intro is painting the white afterward rather than painting it first and masking off--it won't be as bright, but I think that might actually looks a little better at small scale and still clearly read as white, as long as you can avoid getting a big lip of paint around the edges. Looking forward to seeing more that st

Many thanks, guys! There were a couple sites in there that I've never seen before, and I found what I was looking for. Hopefully it'll be up in critique corner in the next month!

Thanks, Rex--I saw some good photos in there, but I wasn't able to find any that shows the areas I'm looking for. I don't think it's a very common angle to photograph...

I'm working on a A-4K Skyhawk, built from Hasegawa's A-4E/F kit. I'm using Gekko Graphics great decals, and the bird I'm building is the third one down on this sheet: I can't for the life of me find any photos showing the paint color of the underside of the wing slats and the underside wing flaps on the back of the wing (though I'm sure they have a real name). Brett Green build this same aircraft a few years ago, and it looks like he painted the interior of those wing flaps the same gray as appears on the outside of the plane, but it's hard to tell. Does anyone have a good suggestions for t

That AGM look really awesome.

For what it's worth, I have used another brand of plastic polish called Novus--I use the medium and fine polish, and have sworn off of Future on canopies for all the reasons Chuck mentions. The results are very clear and shiny, and if it gets dirty, dusty, etc you just need to apply a tiny amount of the fine polish to a q-tip and re-shine.

That's awesome. I love obscure paint jobs.

I would hate to see the Critique Corner go away. As it is, I feel like there's a lot of hesitation to offer complete, honest criticism to models posted even here. Few people are interested in bashing a model that clearly needs a lot of work or addressing every little flaw, but without the Critique Corner there would be no criticism at all, as in the Display Case. Many people enjoy and prefer the more casual atmosphere of the Display Case, but I personally would rather at least attempt to get some honest feedback rather than just sit back and let the fluffy compliments pile up. Not everyone fee

No problem, Eri - the mud splatter was done by loading very thin brown paint into the airbrush. In a double-action airbrush, if I pull the trigger back to open the nozzle without depressing the trigger to let air flow, a little paint seems to escape and sit inside the airbrush. Then I depress the button to allow air to flow with the trigger all the way forward, and that small amount of paint spatters out onto the model. It's not an exact science, and I'm not sure I'm in love with the scale of all the splatter marks. Next time I may try the old toothbrush splatter trick and see if the results a

Thanks Tommy, I appreciate your thoughts! While I sometimes think that high-contrast washes and panel line shading can make for a great-looking model--if not always completely accurate--I like to make mine look like shrunken-down versions of the aircraft to as great a degree as I can. I enjoy building models, but I'd probably skip to the end, to the painting, if I could. It's my favorite part. Thanks again for the compliment!

That scissor link definitely turned out very well--I can't wait to see the finished landing gear.

Thank you - yes, I added the rivets with one of the RB Productions riveters. I tried it on one of my previous WWII fighters and loved it, so now I can't build a plane of that era without doing it. t build

Chauncey (Chance) Vought and Lewis Birdseye founded an aerospace company, the Lewis and Vought Corporation, in 1917. After Birdseye retired it was succeeded by the Chance Vought Corporation. Chance died in 1930, but his company created the Corsair.

Thanks to all those who helped above! I have finally finished this build, and posted in the corner to be critiqued. Much obliged!

I've had this on the table for a couple months, and finally got around to finishing it. Let me know what you think! Please feel free to point out any inaccuracies or flaws in workmanship, etc. I don't have a great photo setup, so I apologize in advance for the not-so-great images. I usually shoot outside in daylight, but there's about a foot of snow on the ground right now. I wish I would have taken some photos of the cockpit before I buttoned it up, as it turned out pretty well. This is my first time using MIG pigments to try to represent mud on the tires as well. I'm reasonably satisfied wit

I looked through a few books I have showing FF-943 and other aircraft from the same unit, and they seem to be pretty universally smooth. The photo I have of 943 doesn't include a great shot of the wings, but it seems very likely that they would have been puttied smooth. I built the same plane and posted it here last year sometime, and that's the way I did mine last year, and how I plan to do my next F-51. It's a bit of a chore, but looks great! Matt

Thanks a lot for these, Dave. Greatgonzo was certainly right about accuracy above--I've now found a couple versions of rivet lines, and each version is different in some way. I'm not too concerned as any would look great on a model, but I share his sentiment that none should be treated as gospel. The model's coming along well, so hopefully not much more than week or two before I can post pics. Thanks again for the help!

PM sent, I appreciate your help with this! I'll be sure to post photos in the Critique Corner when it's done so you can see how it turned out.

Thanks for the replies guys--I guess I'm just surprised this hasn't come up regularly enough in the past that reasonably accurate drawings aren't a click away on the internet. I've found F4U and P-51 panel lines without much trouble--am I to assume those are also on the fuzzy side of accuracy? At any rate, I'd agree with most of the above comments that I'm more interested in something that looks largely correct rather than replicating each rivet exactly. Which doesn't really advance me anywhere at the moment since I can't find any drawings and Aero Detail 14 will take weeks to get from HLJ, b