mkimages

The F-4 has been my favorite for as long as I can remember. Phantoms simply rule. My favorite kit of it has to be the good ol' Monogram 1/48 C/D-model. It may not be the "best" Phantom kit available, but I've built so many of them during my life, building one is like meeting up with an old friend. :)

I'd bet a quarter you're working under fluorescent lights. Try taking a paint sample outside in direct sunlight and see what you think.

Now that's impressive. Beautiful job with what had to be a bear of a project. I'd love to hear more about the "filter" technique you used on the black. It looks quite good on your XL and could probably do a nice job on an SR-71 or U-2 build.

I've found that in cases like that you can't beat magnification. Pick yourself up a cheap eye-loupe (here's the set I have) and see if that doesn't help. Other than that, make sure your brush tips are in good shape (no split ends), your paint is thinned correctly, and you're in a zen-like state of relaxation. Put all those together and you should be able to paint all kinds of fiddly details.

The Alclad II line has a few "clear" colors that work great for tinting the metalizers. I have heard (it may have been from Tony Hipp himself) that you can use standard enamels to tint the metalizers as well, but I have not tried that yet.

Thanks for the follow-up, Gary. That's a neat story about the gray undersides on the museum plane; odd how things work out sometimes. At least now we have some fairly authoritative info as to the true color of Rickenbacker's plane. :)

I've thought about this before, and the best idea I could come up with would be to carve the interior shape of the intake out of some kind of small-cell foam (kind of like what you are using, maybe the stuff used in flower arrangements). Then coat the foam shape with either Milliput, resin, or some other rigid, solvent-resistant material. This will be the actual intake. Once that's dry use a solvent such as lacquer thinner or liquid cement to dissolve the foam in the center and finish up the intake walls with putty and paint as necessary. I've not actually tried it yet, but it works great in

That looks great. They really should give the OK on that scheme for just one aircraft.

Those are absolutely amazing! Welcome to the forum and I can't wait to see what you do in the larger scales. :)

Pretty much any sign shop in your locale ought to have a computerized vinyl cutter. If you can provide ready-to-cut artwork to them they should be able to create the masks for you very inexpensively. Just go in and tell them what you are looking for and they'll give you specs for the type of files they'd need.

Great looking build . I suppose you pretty much have to do a Sopwith Camel next :)

More like, "Ow, my freakin' polishing arm!!!" Beautiful little plane. Don't know what it is, but from the look of it, I'd guess a Curtiss model. And is that a Dauntless-style dive-brake under there? That'd make for some fun during flour-bombing competitions :) .

That looks great Very realistic job on the fading and chipping, especially the areas over the oil coolers (nice touch). The color variations you mentioned could easily have been that way on the real item too. If I were to give any criticism it would be that the red borders on the stars & bars would have faded much faster than the blue and would probably be more of a pale pinkish, almost white color by that point. A very tough thing to replicate on the decals though, so no points off ;) . And a hearty welcome to ARC! Great way to introduce yourself. I'll have a vodka tonic.

I'm currently petless, but here's a shot of my late good buddy Quincy the Green Iguana. Fifty-two inches of scaly reptile coolness.

Lotus Europa TC. Late '60's racing version with the 1.6L Cosworth engine.

If you can't find a copy of the Eduard one, here's a possible alternative (scroll down). Ought to be easy to find O-scale German Shepherds as well. :)

I still think "Shocker" would've been the best choice. :blink:

That's mine, right there. :D The lo-viz reaper on the tail just fits the bird perfectly. Plus it's the last Tomcat I ever saw fly.

This is that bird? Way cool!

I just love watching you work through these projects.

The Air Force Museum has painted theirs a neutral light-gray. I was talking to one of the museum volunteers when I was shooting the walkaround that's here on ARC and he made a point of mentioning the large amount of research that they had undergone while restoring this aircraft, so take that for whatever it's worth. In any case, whatever you do wind up using, I doubt there are any color photos of the real thing to prove you wrong, and anyone with firsthand knowledge is long gone.

Quite a respectable job; a very clean build . I like the shading effect around the green camo areas. It's an interesting effect.

Here's a link to a fairly in-depth look into designing a spray booth.

Good news, everyone! I've successfully blended our delivery ship with a vacuum cleaner!

That's pretty spiffy, thanks.