1/48 Centennial Of Naval Aviation VFA-122 F/A-18F Digital Super Hornet

[Karl Sander]

While I've never been terribly fond of aquaflage as either a uniform OR a paint scheme, I certainly appreciate the effort you put into pulling it off - really very impressive craftsmanship!

[bushande]

Sorry for my late reply and most of all many many thanks for the praise! Too much of the honor folks.

Strangely the launched missile seems to be more "impressing" for people than the camo. It actually just took me about two hours or so to do that. Compared to spending weeks and months on that darned camo it was actually a "piece of cake".

It doesn't take a lot actually: A piece of clear plastic off some old model kit, some padding, clear red and yellow, some hair fixing spray and a brush with some light grey and a candle light. I admit I was so occupied with the camo that I absolutely forgot to take some How-to-shots of the missile.

I'll try to explain but since I plan to do this again soon I'll just take my chances then and would start my first report here on ARC if you like and show it directly via some pics. I think that would be way better? Anyways:

Just take a clear plastic straw of the length you think appropriate, bend one end over an open flame carefully upwards and stretch it a little so you get a thin end. Sand the other end thin to a point where it would fit the tine hole you drill in your missile. Put some dots of clear orange (red / yellow) to simulate the rocket flames. When everything has dried. Take some padding, not much and carefully stretch (not wind) it along the straw. The just dried color should take care of letting the padding stick on the plastic. Extend it slightly over the bent-up ending and than carefully fix it with the hairspray, not too much or you the padding will glue together and the effect is destroyed. Once it all dried and hardened you can form and bend the padding without destroying the overall shape. Slightly brush over it with some light gray at the end. The bent-up end of the straw should stick out of the padding. Drill a hole into your launcher. If it is slightly smaller sou can stick it in without gluing and bang you're done.

The good thing about using clear parts is, that if you present the model in back light situations, the light shines through and it really looks just like smoke, at least in my eyes.

The camo is actually a mix of decals and paintwork. Decals are easy, but the original features a paintjob of a mix of flat and semi flat colors which kind of gives the whole surface a ricked and kind of "alive" appearance under direct light. I you want to achieve that, you have to go beyond decals. I created decals according to the reference I have but used them as a pattern for cutting out some parts of the camo and painting the bird. It's quite an undertaking but in my eyes well worth the effort.

Does that make some sense?

When I do that baby in 1/32 I'll hopefully have more time and muse to do a proper report on it.

Here is a tiny appetizer for my next project. I hope it turns out as well:

many thanks once again for the praise. I really appreciate it.