Has. 1/48 EA-18G

[jward]

Just finished this as a commission build. Kit goes together fairly well but some modification is needed with panel lines, filling gun holes on nose, vents, etc. to represent an accurate Growler. Decals are a bit thick but register was perfect IMHO. Perhaps the bests feature of the kit is that it does come with 2 AMRAAM's and 2 HARM's. Finally - weapons in a Has. kit! Overall a great kit and I plan on building another in the near future as this kit really captures the look of the Growler! Enjoy the pics and any comments / critique is welcomed:

Jim

[jward]

Some more:

Edited August 4, 2012 by jward

[jimz66]

WELL DONE JIM>>>>> VERY VERY VERY WELL DONE.... Awestruckedly awed.....

[blunce]

Looks purdy good, but seems a bit tough to see. Perhaps some photos on a white background?

And since this is "critique forum", I'll offer this observation: while the aircraft looks to be somewhat weathered, the nozzles look pristine. I'd like to see more color variation in them. Also, try and increase your F-stop to get more depth of field for the focus. See how the area that is focused is fairly small compared to that which is blurry? Increasing your F-stop helps this. But other adjustments then become necessary as well. Good to do a search on that, there's been threads here before on photo tips that cover this.

Other than that, GREAT build!

[jward]

Thanks for the comments.

Blunce - you are correct about the nozzles. I need to highlight the lines to give it some depth and realistic finish. Forgot to do that . . . thanks for pointing that out. As for photography - I'm a novice but will certainly look into the F-stop feature and how to use it better.

Jim

[Brian P: Fightertown Decals]

Looks great! Though, I wish you had used Fightertown Decals... no issue with the thickness and some better fitting pieces.

;)

brian

[jward]

I hear ya! I've used your decals in the past and you've got a great product with some very cool subjects. Just wish I had more time (and money) to build all those subjects . . . . . I've got your latest EA-18G sheet (saving it for my personal build which I've already started).

Jim

[Fly-n-hi]

This is a nice build. It looks great.

Since you asked I'll point out a couple of things. Please don't take this as a slam against your nice work.

1. It looks like you might have attached the outer smaller pylons on the wrong sides. They should angle outward from the plane at 4 degrees. It might just be the photo but it looks like yours are angled inwards.

2. This is minor but there should be a little bit of grey around all sides of the anti slip areas on the LEXs.

3. The two small rectangles on the left LEX should be darkened. You could fix that very easily.

4. I could be wrong about this but I think the dark grey grills on the wings where the wing fold hinges are shouldn't be there on the Growler. Hasegawa didn't catch this detail if my memory serves me correctly. I'm not 100% sure on this one, though.

5. The dark grey vents under the nose in front of the nose wheel well aren't there on the Growler. Those are purge vents for the gun gasses but since the Growler doesn't have a gun...

6. The exhaust nozzles on the Superhornets are dark on the inside. The legacy hornets are light on the inside.

These are nit-picky observations, of course.

[Karl Sander]

For depth of field, if you're reluctant to try monkeying with the f-stop itself, my DSLR has an automatic setting for prioritizing depth of field, makes it pretty simple for me and I'm far from a photographic whiz! If yours does too, give it a shot and see how you like it.