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Viper Vendetta -Every nation operator F-16 GB update 22/7


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Some years ago i bought a few f-16s built them and then let them be. They were grossly inaccurately painted, and hardly represented any variant being used today in real life. several GBs later and years of modelling experience after, i decided to give a new shot last year. Ladies and gentlemen i present my latest 1 man GB, the F-16 every nationality operator GB. Every air force is represented, and several doubles and thriples will exist. i will be using Zotz vivacious vipers 1 and 2 for many of them, but also OOB kit decals and special edition boxings, and other brands. Resin and PE included the isracast 1/72 sufa spine+cfts, my recasts of that set, eduard PE sets, aires exhaust cans.. this is one very expensive GB.

most of the photos and construction started last year but was delayed repeatedly for other projects. Now i have gone back to finish what i've started, and this is the story so far.

the list breaks down as follows.

1/72

italeri/tamiya x 3 - 2 dutch and venezulan

kitech c x 4 - portuguese, italian, dutch

kitech d x 3 - polish, chilean, moroccan

revell c x 1 dutch

revell b convert sufa - rsaf 'what if'

acadmey x 4 korean, turkish, greek, YF-16

fujimi x 2 - thai, indonesian

hasegawa x 2 - Belgium tiger meet 2006 2 schemes

hasegawa x 2 - RSAF f-16Cs

kinetic - rsaf f-16d blk52+

esci x 1 belgium

matchbox x 1 - denmark

hobbyboss - norway

1/48

hasegawa C/D - bahrain, singapore

hasegawa, kinetic sufa - singapore, israel

hasegawa F-2 - japanese

hasegawa f-16f UAE

italeri x 3 - pakistan, oman, taiwan

academy - egypt, korean

revell - jordan

tamiya - uae

the sufas will be done seperately in my comparison thread.

Edited by Tomcat RIO
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in early 2008, after pouring through 15,000 photos on f-16.net, i decided to do all the 1/72 european falcons with special markings/tails, whether i have the decals or not. the kits i had was the matchbox and old academy f-16.

my matchbox ex-indonesian B was reputtied, and the small tail enlarged for a block 10 MLU. it is getting the turkish markings tigermeet scheme.

f16fuse.jpg

f16tail.jpg

preshade was given

f16twinpreshade.jpg

followed by the top dark grey, and added pizza box antenna for block 10 danish MLU, and the turkish

twin16done.jpg

6%20gb/f16twinunder.jpg[/img]

i went so far to hand draw tigermeet artowrk on the fin of the B, not knowing that the real aircraft was a D and had a different tail

and the tail of the turkish viper, for tiger meet. was hand drawn. no kidding.

1st white coat given

f16tailredo.jpg

then pencil outline

turk16tail.jpg

deepen the outline

turktail3.jpg

paint black using fine brush and tamiya enamel

turktail2.jpg

finished

turktail4.jpg

pic of the real plane

93-0696_001_001.jpg

Edited by Tomcat RIO
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without losing a breath, i started on 3 other f-16s, an esci, a kitech and a italeri. all of these are very poor quality kits, the esci is at least 20 years old, with recess lines however, and growing rust on some areas of the plastic. the kitech a]is essentially a photocopy of the hasegawa, but is like how unlicensed photocopies tend to be. the italeri is not the one on the market nowadays, it is the original 1980s old school, without the fancy stores and crisp detail of the new italeri/tamiya reboxing.

no sweat. putty party!

esci f-16 still on sprue

f16block1wip3.jpg

upsized the tail to a block 10 mlu.

upsizetail.jpg

f16block1wip5.jpg

kitech still on sprue

f16block1wip6.jpg

f16block1wip9.jpg

f16block1wip10.jpg

and then followed by the italeri,

f16block1wip11.jpg

f16block1wip.jpg

building together has its benefits, here i am switching the tails of the esci and kitech kit, in order to build a short base para housing of the norwegian f-16B, and the long base short tail of the greek block 30 C/D. the italeri kit was going to be done in Portugal ADF, which fortunately does not require me to do much mods as they have not recieved the side bulges on their tails.(told u i was going to AMS a bit more than usual)

f16block1wip7.jpg

f16block1wip2.jpg

Edited by Tomcat RIO
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this was followed by a lull of almost 2 months, and during that time i had stocked many kits, including a rare Fujimi F-16ADF -which gave me the accrurate ADF tails i needed. without delay i moulded my ADF tail from the fujimi kit's.. using epoxy putty. not very pretty like those of wolfpack or aires or blackbox, but hey, it saves me alot of money, and there are no conversions on the market in 1/72 . some touching up with tamiya grey putty, and still some work needed before it looks decent to paint and assemble

adf3.jpg

adf2.jpg

adf.jpg

adf4.jpg

i casted 3 pieces. here u can see. the top piece is the raw from the mould. the 2nd and 3rd pieces are after some retouch of the top pictures. sand and use knife to trim.

the stash at the end of 2008.

DSCN1863.jpg

after that i did not touch the f-16s regularly, instead building other GBs. however, in august i restarted the campaign, and the story follows from there.

have assembled the fuselages and cockpits of a dozen f-16s from various brandsMost of them are lacking in details, but i won't be concerned as the partially tinted canopies will hide them. i will probably do some detailing on the seats and side panel coamings, as all canopy closed and no point looking. (some of them are atrocious anyway.)

16gb42.jpg

well how do i keep track of which plane is which country? you guys might ask. the answer lies in the exhaust plug. i write down the assigned country on tamiya masking tape and then stick it there.

16gb4.jpg

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here we go here we go!! hobbyboss 1/72 A. the one with the nice norwegian tigermeet tail that got me suckered.

kit is SIMPLE to build. 2 halfs top and bottom. fits quite well and removes need for sanding down wing root seams. however. there is an austere lack of details everywhere! and considering it is the same price as a academy kit.. i would get the second if not for the decals.

DSCN3955.jpg

cockpit is bare!

DSCN3954.jpg

no detail in the wheel well

DSCN3956.jpg

the design of the intake reduces puttying and seams.

DSCN3957.jpg

horriboss provides the long tail seperate, allowing us to build the european and longtail A version. but don't be happy yet, the shape and size of the extended tail is 150% wrong.

DSCN3958.jpg

and as for stores? 2 nugget shaped fuel tanks!

DSCN3959.jpg

the pylons were attched to the wings

DSCN3964.jpg

and this is the worst part about horriboss. the instruction asks to slide and fit the landing gear struts AFTER you assemble. very difficult to slide in and twist, and espeically after painting, there is bound to be some scratch marks. well now you know.

DSCN3965.jpg

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and moving on to the vintage but decent Fujimi kits. Here i have a B and the ADF, one of the only true ADFs that provide the right shape tail. but no spotlight on the chin. still, there was no competition in sight until the tamiya/italeri half hearted extra piece many years later.

DSCN3960.jpg

cockpit detail is as usual, bare. with gaping caves behind the ejection seats . the side panels are way too small, something reminiscent of prehistoric airfix kits. i didnt bother to fill up the back, as i didn't know there would be gaps. (gasp!) oh well, hope the smoked canopies can do their best to hide.

DSCN3961.jpg

the easy moulding process, where there is a standard fuselage, and extra cockpit area for 1 or 2 seater, is evident here. and associated with it, is the puttying and filling of seam lines!

DSCN3962.jpg

landing gear bays. are typically, empty of details.

DSCN3963.jpg

the front of the bay was empty. this, i had to do something. i made a template using paper, and then transfered it to placard, and then filled up the gap.

DSCN3970.jpg

DSCN3971.jpg

DSCN3973.jpg

DSCN3974.jpg

the unique intake design was meant to reduce puttying, but at the expense of a wrong curve on the triangle-main intake joint area.

DSCN3967.jpg

DSCN3968.jpg

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here is the esci, putty the wings, and fill up the underwing pylon holes.. this will be done in the Belgium airforce 'spitfire' markings

escibelg.jpg

escibelg2.jpg

and here is the notorious tamiya/italeri kit. the staple of many new modellers into the hobby, i've seen many young kids carry this kit around at airshows, toy departments, because its one of the most easily available kit then. well, this kit sucks! if i may say it plainly, age is surely caught up, and it can't be made into the newer version of the f-16 without some serious work.

fuselage assembled first

ita72sp1.jpg

the spine require heavy filling bcos of the optional 1/2 seat coaming piece

ita72sp12.jpg

landing gear detail is sparse

ita72sp13.jpg

that notoriously horrible A tail of the italeri kit. filling is required, and sanding too.

ita72sp14.jpg

now multiply that by 5

ita72sp15.jpg

wings have been attached, and i tried fitting the tailplanes but they are inaccurate! the tailplane end does not flush with the airbrak tips, there is about 15cm more of tail on the real thing, so i modded the stub. simple stuff.

ita72sp16.jpg

left unmodded, right modded. the stub was cut shorter.

ita72sp17.jpg[

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also finished assembling the pile of kitech. and casted with rubber mould a block 50 'big mouth' intake for the Chilean A.F. version

kitp1.jpg

kitp12.jpg

kitp13.jpg

to the temporary shelf!

kitp14.jpg

1 of the special kitech, italian ADF filled up the pylon holes.

kitp15.jpg

here's my worktable! i have no place to put but on the floor at times too!

16wipmany5.jpg

16wipmany6.jpg

16wipmany2.jpg

in the background you can see another storm rising, the 1/48s..

16p45.jpg

the spine backed kitech were fitted with casted epoxy CFTs and spines.

16p452.jpg

Edited by Tomcat RIO
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initiate Operation Falcon Fury - the multi tone grey paint on all the kits. first i preshaded most of the kits, the Dirty Dianas, European Tigers, Asian vipers etc..

DSCN4162.jpg

this is followed by the nose cone grey. which was sprayed and masked.

after that i sprayed the front fuselage grey (middle grey according to myself) following that, spray the wings and top side (dark grey)

for the wing root joint at the flaps and elevator area, i masked out the dark grey after it was sprayed, and then delivered carefully aimed shot of the middle grey.

72f16s2nd.jpg

and multiply by a few times

72f16s2nd2.jpg

also i sanded the the acadmey canopy which have a seam line running down the center.

i bought a emery nail buffer from a cosmetics shop a long time back.(my girlfriend was shopping for hairclips, and i looked around for modelling suitable tools.:D)

72f16s2nd5.jpg

the simple straightforward process, from 1-3.

72f16s2nd3.jpg

72f16s2nd4.jpg

and lastly with tamiya polish compound and cotton bud to polish.

72f16s2nd7.jpg

before and after!

72f16s2nd6.jpg

Edited by Tomcat RIO
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painted exhuast pipes gun metal

16exhaust.jpg

then masked them like so

16spainted2.jpg

mount them on the kits, glue and putty and sand the resulting seams. spray the grey. and remove

16spainted4.jpg

16spainted5.jpg

start painting the spinebacks

16spainted11.jpg

16spainted9.jpg

masking spray with paper template the venezulean camo

16spainted8.jpg

16spainted12.jpg

camo schemed f-16s done!

16spainted13.jpg

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and this is how most of my 1/72s look today, 26th October 2009, almost 2 years since the GB started. 15 f-16s on standby for more action.

16spainted.jpg

Southeast asia - thai, south korea and indonesia

16spainted16.jpg

european airforces - very grey and dull i will attempt to lighten the colours and in the background the 4 are for dirty diana GB

16spainted15.jpg

south american f-16

16spainted14.jpg

i shall post the story of the 1/48s soon..

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I didn't see the USA on your list of operators, but nice idea! Very ambitious.

Aaron

oops, yea! i forgot about it! i had a Navy top gun adversary f-16N built way long ago. it's too crappy to be seen.. i have a thunderbirds and a minutemen decals at the moment, but no plastic kit for me to use it on.

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  • 3 weeks later...

masked and sprayed the landing gear bays of 15 jets. with their associated landing gear struts and covers, wheels, etc..

f16ww2.jpg

f16ww4.jpg

f16ww.jpg

painted the flat black cockpit

f16ww3.jpg

gloss coat for all in preparation of decals

f16ww6.jpg

got tails?

f16ww5.jpg

a enamel wash was also given

f16ww7.jpg

f16ww8.jpg

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long time no update. pver the past 2 weeks i have been decalling the whole swarm..

here is revell's spitfire belgium. the decal sheet was bigger than my water tray!

16spitdec3.jpg

16spitdec.jpg

i have never done a decal sheet as big as a 1/72 spitfire.. so i had extra care and lots of mark softerner to let it conform to panel lines.

16spitdec2.jpg

i also handpainted a portugal roundel as i didn't have decals in the right scale, and i was not in the right mind either.

porty164.jpg

porty16.jpg

porty1622.jpg

porty1623.jpg

i also handpainted jaguar spots for the tail.

porty163.jpg

porty162.jpg[

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finally after 2 weeks of pasting decals, stencils.. i see the ligth at the end of the tunnel!

here is a pair from thailand and indonesia, both using Zotz decals.

decalalal2.jpg

south american vipers from venezula and chile, decal from italeri and Zotz

decalalal3.jpg

european twin tubs Poland and Denmark, ancient italeri and kagero

decalalal5.jpg

european tigers norway and portugal - horriboss and custom

decalalal4.jpg

korea and belgium

decalalal.jpg

and last but not least, my favourite of the lot, the Dirty Diana mini GB. image blurred because of nudity.. hehehe i knew you guys would take a closer look!

decalalal6.jpg

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This is simply incredible, I love it :thumbsup:

I thought I had a job with doing four Euro Typhoons, this trumps that ever so slightly. :)

And each job is top-notch, love the contrasting camos, very cool work!

Cheers, Ian

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This is impressive.

I also would like to do a collection of just 72nd scale kits representing every country but only have 3-4 kits so far. Lots of decals though.

I will be watching this for ideas (no pressure).

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