Drew T.

Thanks so much for the kind words guys! Happy Easter! Drew

Thanks for the kind words everyone!

Finally finished this one, photos of the final product are here:

Hi Guys, Just finished this after about 6 years away from the hobby. It's Tamiya's excellent 1/48 F-16C with the following aftermarket sets: Decals: Speed Hunter Graphic’s SEAD specialists part I sheet, also used homemade masks made with my Silhouette printer for the tail markings and Fox head logo. Cockpit: Avionix cockpit set with Wolfpack’s ejection seat Weapons: Hasegawa’s weapons set E for the HTM pod and Sniper pylon, Eduard for the Sniper pod, AIM-120's, and HARM Missile Wheel bays: Aires Exhaust: Aries Nose: Royal Resin Master static dis

Thanks Matthew! I noticed that oil or fuel tends to leak around the rear panels and around the fuselage panels between the cockpit and wing, so I wanted to depict it as best I could without it seeming heavy handed.

Thanks! Almost done now! Trying not to rush through the last items.

Hi Steve, Arnaud, Gianni, and Steve! Thanks for the kind words!

Hey guys, finally finished the weathering, now it's time for final assembly. The only hurtle I have now is adding all the hydraulic hoses to the landing gear and bay doors. It's a fiddly job that's kind of a chore to me. Here's some photos of where everything stands now. That's all for now. Hopefully next time, I'll be done! Drew

Thanks Alien Frog Modeller! Thanks Steve! Getting close, I'm finally to the weathering stage, which might be by favorite part of the process. Drew

Thanks Mr Matt Foley! When I got around to applying the carbon fiber decals to the exhaust, I first considered wrapping one piece around the entire exhaust, but then thought that would be too much trouble getting it to wrap around without any wrinkles. So I did cut an oversized separate piece for each pedal and applied them separately. Before the decal dried, I trimmed each side so it wouldn't overlap to the adjacent pedal. Otherwise, it would be impossible to remove the excess decal without damaging the decal below. I did final trimming to length once it was dried. Also, these decals se

Since the decals for the fox head logo behind the canopy were also inaccurate, I found a good image of the logo with a Google search and was easily able to put that in the Studio program to cut a stencil. I’m impressed with what the Silhouette cutter can do. It had a hard time cutting the eyes for the fox head logo, so I had to cut several copies until I got a couple of usable ones. The light gray stencil decals that go over the Gunship Gray areas of the plane were darker than the Mr. Color neutral gray paint, so I used some extra decals from a Two Bobs decal sheet that were a lighter shade

Finally have an update! I finally got painting and decaling completed. I also ended up taking the plunge on using a stencil cutter to mask and paint some of the markings to replace a few decals that were inaccurate. The font and color of the South Carolina tail fin banner decal was slightly different from what my reference photos showed. Since it looked like a stencil cutter could be used to cut the letters, I bought a Silhouette Portrait cutter and Oramask 813 vinyl stencil film. I found a matching font for the tail fin banner in Microsoft Word and used Microsoft Paint to manipulate the

Thanks Thadeus! Appreciate the kind words! Thanks Crackerjazz! I would recommend the stencils. It lets you spray a pattern that you just can't achieve freehand with a small nozzle in the airbrush. I've been trying to post an update, but I keep getting an internal service error. I'll have to contact Steve if it keeps up. Drew

Thanks Steve and Jake! I'm looking forward to doing the oil washes and weathering. Right now, I'm building the missiles so I can decal and weather them with the rest of the model. Drew

Thanks Arnobiz! Your suggestion is basically what I ended up doing. I went back and added more mottling with thinned down lightened and darkened variations on the base color. I’m pretty happy with how it came out and seems to match the sun faded look F-16’s get on the top side. The painting on the airframe is finally complete now. The nose, air intake lip, and AIFF antenna between the cokpit and nose have a special coating that can’t be repainted. I sprayed them Mr. Color C317, as that seemed like a good match to my reference photos. I sprayed the HTM pod and Sniper pod pylon Mr. Co