Thadeus

Thanks again. I'll try to keep them coming. It's a great way to clear my head from work. So many projects, so little time, such small shelf space. 😉

Thanks Davide. Sadly, while I don't remember the colors exactly, I'd wager I ripped them off of some Eduard scheme or something like that. If I were to guess today, I'd say the sand color is actually Gunze Aqueus H27 Tan. I might have added something like dark tan - H310, but I really don't remember. I did buy a paint jar of H27 sometime as I was doing this model. For the green I've no idea other than it was most probably a Gunze green. My best bet would have it as a H302 since the green seems to have this specific hue of FS34097, or perhaps H340. Undersides is either painted in cu

So, two more are done. Not that much was left to do honestly. The overall quality of the KP kit is not bad. There are several areas that are annoying, such as the flapping wings, but that is fixable. The fit of the nose wheel mudguard is something that bothers me a lot to this day however. The part is in one piece, and doesn't fit on the wheels. At least not when they are mounted on the leg itself. I tried thinning it and adding a piece of plastic to extend the part. This helps a tiny bit. But the mudguard does not fit deep enough. So I figured a horrible solution - I cut a part o

Thank You very much! Only F-22 left to do 😉 And decals are already done. I've originally wanted to use Revell newer kit decals for the stencils and national markings, with Revell older decals for the tail code. In the meantime I figured I'll paint some larger gray areas, since they look more similar to the outer gray painted areas. Stands to reason they are the same paint, just weathered differently. The panel decals from newer Revell kit do have light gull gray feel. Actually, that could be a nice fit for my scheme. At this angle the decal

My first F-35A in Polish AF uniform is done. Academy kit is quite nice, decals were amazing, other than they kept not wanting to go off the tweezers. The overall detail looks quite nice and the internal weapons bay is quite nice. But in many places the detail relief blended with the surface and that made some painting and applying some decals harder. The sides of the fuselage was probably the worst. I'm not a fan of Academy ejection seat, I've had some trouble fitting the part to the rear of the headrest. The AK paint overall was hard for me to work with. After the final matt

Wow. I finished first two MiG-21's. After decaling, the finishing touches was quite simple. I had to complete my main reason to doing the PFM - Monsun twin rack. Sadly, You can't build one from just one Eduard MiG-21PF/PFM, since there is only a pair of R-3 missiles, and APU-13 launcers. But I robbed the MF kit out of a pair of launchers, and I had two additional R-3S missiles. The rack is indeed something different. I chose little weathering, just some panel liner, along with semi gloss clear coat as a final finish.

An Oregon ANG Phantom. Exactly what I need for my collection. Great!

As for paint brands, the Vallejo acrylics mate quite nicelly with their Metal Color range, making some nice metallic grays. I've used their 36251 and 36176 with Metal Color Aluminium (and a drop or two of some other colors) and I'm quite pleased. But most of the effect on the paint seems to dissappear once I applied the gloss coats. Once I'll finish my Raptor, I'll have a definite answer here. And the 36176 seems a bit too light. Plus it's Vallejo Air, so theres a lot of dislike out there. Looking at real F-22 colors, I've seen some patches of what seemed to be a straight up silver paint.

Huh. Interesting observation. I was going to say it's just an illusion, since Academy sits lower, hence is further from my phone. But You are actually right. Here they are more or less on equal level, with Academy kit sitting on top of two large blue tack blobs. They are aligned by the wing leading edge, and I hovered my phone about the middle of the joint there. It would seem Academy kit is 212mm long, with Hasegawa being 218mm long. Academy spans 144,8mm, while Hasegawa spans 148,3mm. My digital caliper goes only 155mm so this is as close as I can get. There is

Once I sorted out the intakes and painted the cockpit, the main assembly took very little time. I had to clean up some gaps on the rear fuselage and on the nose joint. Nothing major. Most putty was requred by the droped flaps and elevators. So, OOB a pretty good fit overall. The masks are a nice touch, but the cockpit glass ones are too small, or designed to leave an arch on the outside. Some Tamiya rubber black as a primer. And I chose the AK 3rd gen #AK11882 Have glass gray. Funny color. It sprays and appears to be metallic with blue

pt 2 I did not paint all the areas light ghost gray. I mean I did pre paint some, but then I figured It'll be easier to mask them all off. I did add some paint touchups and different panels with aluminium/dull aluminium mix. I did try to add similar effects to what I've seen on the real jet (05-4090 AK 90FS jet), but frankly, most of the effects I "borrowed" from other jets. I did polish some areas with paper towel, and that added a bit shine to the paint and also sort of removed a little color showing even more metallic sheen.

So, after all the testing I figured I'll do something slightly different for a basic coat. Instead of painting over the semi gloss black I did a sort of light uneven preshade coat of Vallejo Metal Color dull aluminium. The basic color I settled on Vallejo Air 36251 with Vallejo Metal Color Aluminium mixed in 30/40 drops plus 4 drops of white. Here's how it looked initially, the left wing was painted with both colors. And here the upper piece is almost fully painted. Here, only middle remains without the base color. But You can already see the

Lovelly work. Vallejo paints look really nice for acrylics. The pigment is so small. And they mix well with Vallejo air. Nice tip about the Vallejo chrome, I felt like the regular aluminium is a bit yellowish, and white aluminium too bright. I figured the Chrome to be like a shiny version of white aluminium.

So, with the Raptor, I've finally decided to paint it. I suppose it waited enough for some proper paint. And with good results. I re-checked all the joints and did some light sanding where I found flaws. I tried to polish out the scratches on the wings, but I only managed to go so far. Whatever the case, Raptor got some base paint. Again. Now, finding the "proper" paint for myself turned out to be a challenge. I got some FS 36251 proper from Vallejo. Its the largest square. Smaller but lighter ones are 36375 from Vallejo and their 36300. The metal-ish paints all around

With several F-35A's on the market, the Academy release still holds it own I believe. The weapons bay looks pretty nice for 1/72 scale. And the surface detail is equally nice. Perhaps should not be so pronounced, but for me, I like this texture, even if overscaled. I however chose to close the weapons bay. And cut the flaps. The underside pieces were a bit hard to cut. What I found to be weirdly relaxing was masking the cockpit. It came out not half bad. Cockpit detail is quite nice. Hobby 2000 gives You de