Jump to content

1/32 Trumpeter A-10C Hog- "Putting Lipstick on a Pig of a Kit"


Recommended Posts

Great work Chuck, I have one of those Tamiya panel line accent colors but was not that sure how to try them out. After seeing your post, I think I'll try this trick on my Hornet. I love how the Hog looks and am waiting for further updates!

Kind regards, Sven.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Everything looks great Chuck. I like how all the details pop out with the wash. The surface prep is very well done. I wish I had the patience and skills to be this meticulous. A fellow modeler suggested this kind of a very dark pre-wash for models painted in white, like the thunderbirds. I thought that was a great idea. With your gray scheme, I think it will work really well also.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Thanks for all your comments Guys. You are too kind, but I am a sucker for praise! Since my wife, kids and dog don't get why I do what I do, it's nice to know that there's other modelers out there that appreciate all the picky little work I attempt to do.

Random Modeling Thoughts:

5) Don’t rush things. If you are trying to squeeze in an hour’s worth of work into 45 minutes because of some other time commitment, don’t even try. You will do a crappy job, it will haunt you and if you’re lucky, you might get a second chance to do it all over again later. Besides, it’s no fun modeling in a rushed state anyway.

6) Don’t rush the ending. We are all guilty of throwing all the little bits onto a model at the end to just get the darn thing finished. If you are posting a WIP thread, you want to show the boys how it all came together, which is both exciting and stressful. You want everything right, but you also want to finally see the conclusion. Trust me. Take your time or you might regret it.

I wrote those tips a few weeks ago for some of you, but mostly for ME! As much as I've been given praise for being patient with this kit, the reality is that I'm just about the most impatient person in the world. For some reason modeling forces me to slow down and take things easy, which is one of the reasons I like this hobby I guess. I can't control the timing on just about everything else in my life, but I can with my progress on a kit. Now that I'm getting near the end of this project, progress will actually slow down as I try to get all the many small details right. As mentioned earlier, I am away from modeling for most of March, so I suspect I won't be finished until April sometime.

With the end of this build in sight, I have already decided on my next project and you will be very surprised at what I selected. I just bought the 1/32 TRUMPETER P-38L Lightning kit and about 15 after-market items to "Kick it up a Notch"- and then some. Yes, I know I've been bashing Trumpeter a lot lately, but I've always loved this fighter, I like to build a prop every once in awhile, Tamiya doesn't make one and I've read that this kit is much better than the A-10 - which is pretty easy to do! I haven't selected a subject yet, but it will be a bare metal finish and I'm toying with the idea of making a "restored bird", so that almost everything will look new and shiny to get me away from my usual heavy weathering for a change. I learned a lot about Alclad painting during my Mustang build, so I think I can make this aircraft look like I used real foil, only better. I think that Tamiya Panel Line Color wash will look terrific before Alclad. I'm already really looking forward to it!

Thanks for your patience and continued interest

Link to post
Share on other sites

With the end of this build in sight, I have already decided on my next project and you will be very surprised at what I selected. I just bought the 1/32 TRUMPETER P-38L Lightning kit and about 15 after-market items to "Kick it up a Notch"- and then some. Yes, I know I've been bashing Trumpeter a lot lately, but I've always loved this fighter, I like to build a prop every once in awhile, Tamiya doesn't make one and I've read that this kit is much better than the A-10 - which is pretty easy to do! I haven't selected a subject yet, but it will be a bare metal finish and I'm toying with the idea of making a "restored bird", so that almost everything will look new and shiny to get me away from my usual heavy weathering for a change. I learned a lot about Alclad painting during my Mustang build, so I think I can make this aircraft look like I used real foil, only better. I think that Tamiya Panel Line Color wash will look terrific before Alclad. I'm already really looking forward to it!

Thanks for your patience and continued interest

Great choice Chuck, I was wondering when you'd announce what your next project will be. I've taken some inspiration from your P-51 build and have been eying either the Tamiya P-51 or their 1/32 Corsair...any thoughts?

Link to post
Share on other sites

With the end of this build in sight, I have already decided on my next project and you will be very surprised at what I selected. I just bought the 1/32 TRUMPETER P-38L Lightning kit and about 15 after-market items to "Kick it up a Notch"- and then some. Yes, I know I've been bashing Trumpeter a lot lately, but I've always loved this fighter, I like to build a prop every once in awhile, Tamiya doesn't make one and I've read that this kit is much better than the A-10 - which is pretty easy to do! I haven't selected a subject yet, but it will be a bare metal finish and I'm toying with the idea of making a "restored bird", so that almost everything will look new and shiny to get me away from my usual heavy weathering for a change. I learned a lot about Alclad painting during my Mustang build, so I think I can make this aircraft look like I used real foil, only better. I think that Tamiya Panel Line Color wash will look terrific before Alclad. I'm already really looking forward to it!

Thanks for your patience and continued interest

Hope you got enough bullets for it:

http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/881411be19db060c_large

Jari

Link to post
Share on other sites

Great choice Chuck, I was wondering when you'd announce what your next project will be. I've taken some inspiration from your P-51 build and have been eying either the Tamiya P-51 or their 1/32 Corsair...any thoughts?

While the Corsair looks fantastic and I'm sure I will build one some day, everybody should build the P-51D kit at least once. The plastic parts, detail and perfect fit are a joy to work with- and maybe that's why the Trumpeter kit looked so awful to me right after building the Mustang. This kit can be built OOB easily into a real showpiece and I bet the Corsair kit is just as good and maybe even better? All I know is that the Mustang is the supreme classic and every aviation enthusiast should have at least one. Having said that, my next prop after the P-38 will be the Tamiya Mk.IX Spitfire.

Hope you got enough bullets for it:

http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/881411be19db060c_large

Jari

I am counting on you for lots of pics Jari! Thanks for tagging along my builds and supplying me with so many great pics.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Great work, Chuck. I've been following this build from the start, but it's been a while since I posted something. There's only so many ways one can express how awesome this build is, and how much I appreciate the way you keep explaining in great detail how you do things.

And now you announce your next build, a Lightning, just as I have decided to build the 1/48 lightning in my stash. I could just bow my head to your skills and give up before I start. But I think I'll use your future thread as an inspiration instead. I'm lightyears away from attaining your level of building, but I'm quite sure following how you do things might kick my build up quite a notch as well(or that's what I hope at least) ;).

Thanks for doing these WIP threads, Chuck.

Peter

Edited by huntermountain
Link to post
Share on other sites

Great work, Chuck. I've been following this build from the start, but it's been a while since I posted something. There's only so many ways one can express how awesome this build is, and how much I appreciate the way you keep explaining in great detail how you do things.

And now you announce your next build, a Lightning, just as I have decided to build the 1/48 lightning in my stash. I could just bow my head to your skills and give up before I start. But I think I'll use your future thread as an inspiration instead. I'm lightyears away from attaining your level of building, but I'm quite sure following how you do things might kick my build up quite a notch as well(or that's what I hope at least) ;)/>/>/>/>.

Thanks for doing these WIP threads, Chuck.

Peter

Thanks Peter! You are way too kind. I'm glad, however, that posting my "tips" now and then are worthwhile.

Aah, great to see her come together!

Not sure I am getting the big benefit of those Tamiya pre-washes vs conventional wash at the end of the build?

Marcel

You may be right Buddy, but here's the theory. How many times have you applied a wash to your model after painting and a coat of Future (or other gloss coat) and found that certain panel lines and rivets won't take the wash? The reason for this is that your panel line or rivet is too full of paint and Future and now is too shallow. Further, some panel lines that might have looked fine before paint now show that they vary in width and depth- the dreaded "inconsistent panel line" deduction at a model contest.

By applying the wash early, I can find most of these flaws and be able to easily correct them. After paint and Future, good luck re-scibing a panel line without making a mess. Also, you might want some panel lines to show, but maybe not that much. With an overall wash, the saturation of the wash is the same for all panel lines, so it's hard to modulate. By doing a wash ahead of paint, I can control the density of the panel line color with more or less paint, especially since I'm using such a light color.

This method will not eliminate using a wash after paint and Future, because I'm sure I'll be doing quite a bit of it at the end. I have had terrible results using oil based washes over Future where the wash dissolves paint in certain areas where the Future must have been a bit too thin, like tight areas where spraying anything can be tricky. That's why I use Flory washes where I don't have to worry about any of that because it's water based. As good as this wash is, it isn't as good as oil based washes for small details like tiny rivets. Hopefully the combination of the Tamiya wash before paint and the Flory wash after paint will be just what I'm looking for. Or, the whole exercise will be a waste of time and effort and I crash and burn! At the very least, the application of a wash this early in the build has helped me fix a lot of problems I didn't know I had.

Edited by chuck540z3
Link to post
Share on other sites

Chuck

Absolutely brilliant work and I marvel at your ability to stay the course and make sure it's right on the money. Thank you for taking the time to review the Tamiya washes, as I also have been wanting to give them a try and see how they work as the final panel washes.

Always enjoy stopping by and catching up on your progress.

Peter

Edited by Peterpools
Link to post
Share on other sites

I think it's brilliant -- doing a wash before actual painting. I've seen the pre-shading online, here and everywhere else and while I love the look, I have yet to see pictures of actual aircraft where pre-shading emulated the actual aircraft.

I've done your technique on a test model (old kit with raised panel lines I re-scribed) and will add the final color coat if the weather cooperates tomorrow (it's very humid here ATM).

Super build, Mr. Chuck.

Link to post
Share on other sites

I've seen the pre-shading online, here and everywhere else and while I love the look, I have yet to see pictures of actual aircraft where pre-shading emulated the actual aircraft.

Thanks. While I generally agree with you, there are sometimes exceptions. Here are two different CF-18's I took pics of a few years ago. While most panel lines are just that, panel lines, there are some instances where there is a smeared dark panel demarcation that can be replicated by pre-shading...

Preshade1-1.jpg

Preshade2-1.jpg

You could of course post-shade, but I don't think it would be as easy to do or as effective unless you were a real expert with the airbrush.

Edited by chuck540z3
Link to post
Share on other sites

Hi Chuck, superb progress on this big animal. As ever your work is flawless. I will follow how this panel line pre-shading works out with interest.

I've seen the pre-shading online, here and everywhere else and while I love the look, I have yet to see pictures of actual aircraft where pre-shading emulated the actual aircraft.

Super build, Mr. Chuck.

Funnily enough the A-10 is possibly one of the few real world candidates where a dark pre-shade actually looks authentic in places. If you study many photos of A-10's you will notice several areas on the airframe, particularly on the forward fuselage flanks, where the panels appear pre-shaded. Personally I think I'd restrict pre-shading on a model to those areas but an overall coverage seems to be traditional/obligatory these days. :hmmm:

Keep up the great work Chuck.

Cheers.

Link to post
Share on other sites
You may be right Buddy, but here's the theory. How many times have you applied a wash to your model after painting and a coat of Future (or other gloss coat) and found that certain panel lines and rivets won't take the wash? The reason for this is that your panel line or rivet is too full of paint and Future and now is too shallow. Further, some panel lines that might have looked fine before paint now show that they vary in width and depth- the dreaded "inconsistent panel line" deduction at a model contest.

By applying the wash early, I can find most of these flaws and be able to easily correct them. After paint and Future, good luck re-scibing a panel line without making a mess. Also, you might want some panel lines to show, but maybe not that much. With an overall wash, the saturation of the wash is the same for all panel lines, so it's hard to modulate. By doing a wash ahead of paint, I can control the density of the panel line color with more or less paint, especially since I'm using such a light color.

This method will not eliminate using a wash after paint and Future, because I'm sure I'll be doing quite a bit of it at the end. I have had terrible results using oil based washes over Future where the wash dissolves paint in certain areas where the Future must have been a bit too thin, like tight areas where spraying anything can be tricky. That's why I use Flory washes where I don't have to worry about any of that because it's water based. As good as this wash is, it isn't as good as oil based washes for small details like tiny rivets. Hopefully the combination of the Tamiya wash before paint and the Flory wash after paint will be just what I'm looking for. Or, the whole exercise will be a waste of time and effort and I crash and burn! At the very least, the application of a wash this early in the build has helped me fix a lot of problems I didn't know I had.

Thanks, am keen to see the results. I also agree, but kinda even more so, on your comments further along, I DO often see paint discoloration around panels, esp on Navy aircraft, if the panels have been worked on frequently there will be staining there and in Navy aircraft you'll get the opposite due to paint sealing. I like to do that with a hand brush but that's a very drawn-out process.

:cheers:

Marcel

Link to post
Share on other sites

AMAZING progress so far Chuck, simply amazing !!

I love your idea about using the wash to highlight the details, I've thought about doing it to my Tomcat but, was afraid it would be problematic when it came time to prime / paint ( I use the Flory washes ). This is one of the reasons that I personally feel you are at the top skill wise. You are constantly thinking "outside the box" and are not afraid to try new things. I have learned alot watching this build and have used some of your tips as well and for that I thank you.

The Hog looks great and I am looking forward to your next update.

Steve

Link to post
Share on other sites

Nice work Chuck, I look forward to seeing this one with some paint on it soon! One thing I've always found fun about US Navy and/or low-viz birds are the heavy amount of weathering and touchups they endure. I usually find to really replicate the effect, I will paint the plane almost like new to begin, and skip the preshading entirely. Next begins the weathering then I will go over the camp/painted areas with lightened amounts of the base color to create a "mottling" effect, highlight panel lines that get worked on, use different colors for the touched up areas, and then brown/blacks in various places for dirt/grime. Anyway just my two cents worth, keep up the good work!

Link to post
Share on other sites

Nice work Chuck, I look forward to seeing this one with some paint on it soon! One thing I've always found fun about US Navy and/or low-viz birds are the heavy amount of weathering and touchups they endure. I usually find to really replicate the effect, I will paint the plane almost like new to begin, and skip the preshading entirely. Next begins the weathering then I will go over the camp/painted areas with lightened amounts of the base color to create a "mottling" effect, highlight panel lines that get worked on, use different colors for the touched up areas, and then brown/blacks in various places for dirt/grime. Anyway just my two cents worth, keep up the good work!

You mean like this!? :D BTW, This pic shows the "Marceleum" walkways fairly well.

RearTop11.jpg

RearTop16.jpg

I still take heat for making an Air Force bird look mottled and dirty, until I show the "expert" this line jet taken in Germany:

26TRWScottWilson3.jpg

That usually shuts them up. :lol: I did something similar to a 1/32 Tamiya F-14B build, but my pics really suck and you can't really see much detail.

Edited by chuck540z3
Link to post
Share on other sites

You mean like this!? :D/> BTW, This pic shows the "Marceleum" walkways fairly well.

RearTop11.jpg

RearTop16.jpg

I still take heat for making an Air Force bird look mottled and dirty, until I show the "expert" this line jet taken in Germany:

26TRWScottWilson3.jpg

That usually shuts them up. :lol:/> I did something similar to a 1/32 Tamiya F-14B build, but my pics really suck and you can't really see much detail.

Stunning build Chuck! Wish I could do them like that in terms of exquisite detail and attention to accuracy, not to mention such perfect finishes!

As for the weather-beaten RF-4C shot, that looks like a touched-up jet close to or slightly overdue for its next PDM cycle which, in the mid-1980s, was 54 months for that type! It had been extended from 48 months used before, up from the 24 months between repaints in the 1970s.

The F-111s I saw regularly in the 1980s had extensive resprays every 4 years and most - but not all - looked fairly tidy for most of that time.

Navy jets in the any-shade-goes tactical paint schemes, by contrast, very tatty-looking.

One more factor: photos, especially colour transparencies, pick up greater variations in hue than the human eye can distinguish in real life, and tend to greatly exaggerate these variations in the pictures.The real things, in everyday real life, did not vary that much. They looked much neater.

Tony

Link to post
Share on other sites

Stunning build Chuck! Wish I could do them like that in terms of exquisite detail and attention to accuracy, not to mention such perfect finishes!

As for the weather-beaten RF-4C shot, that looks like a touched-up jet close to or slightly overdue for its next PDM cycle which, in the mid-1980s, was 54 months for that type! It had been extended from 48 months used before, up from the 24 months between repaints in the 1970s.

The F-111s I saw regularly in the 1980s had extensive resprays every 4 years and most - but not all - looked fairly tidy for most of that time.

Navy jets in the any-shade-goes tactical paint schemes, by contrast, very tatty-looking.

One more factor: photos, especially colour transparencies, pick up greater variations in hue than the human eye can distinguish in real life, and tend to greatly exaggerate these variations in the pictures.The real things, in everyday real life, did not vary that much. They looked much neater.

Tony

I took the photo of the ratty looking Zweibrucken recce. It wasn't exaggeration by the Kodachrome I used; the jet really looked like that and that was the reason I took that photo. We had a number of F-4Es at Ramstein that looked pretty tired, and I saw and photgraphed a fair number of Zweibrucken, Spangdahlem, and Alconbury F-4s that looked very weathered, if not quite as extreme as this. The F-111Es and Fs did generally look a bit fresher, perhaps they spent more time inside their TAB-Vs and not outside exposed to the elements? Our Phantoms at Ramstein launched out of their TAB-Vs in the morning and weren 't stuffed back inside until late in the evening each day.

Scott Wilson

526AMU, 86 AGS, 86TFW, Ramstein AB, 1983-1986

Link to post
Share on other sites

I took the photo of the ratty looking Zweibrucken recce. It wasn't exaggeration by the Kodachrome I used; the jet really looked like that and that was the reason I took that photo. We had a number of F-4Es at Ramstein that looked pretty tired, and I saw and photgraphed a fair number of Zweibrucken, Spangdahlem, and Alconbury F-4s that looked very weathered, if not quite as extreme as this. The F-111Es and Fs did generally look a bit fresher, perhaps they spent more time inside their TAB-Vs and not outside exposed to the elements? Our Phantoms at Ramstein launched out of their TAB-Vs in the morning and weren 't stuffed back inside until late in the evening each day.

Scott Wilson

526AMU, 86 AGS, 86TFW, Ramstein AB, 1983-1986

You took the picture Scott; you should know! I probably saw too many F-4Es at airshows, looking spick and span, and the F-111s mostly lived in their TAB-V's between sorties as you say.

I greatly admire Chuck's work and, frankly, don't know how he does it! I'd go blind(er) trying to replicate his level of detail!

Tony

Link to post
Share on other sites

You took the picture Scott; you should know! I probably saw too many F-4Es at airshows, looking spick and span, and the F-111s mostly lived in their TAB-V's between sorties as you say.

I greatly admire Chuck's work and, frankly, don't know how he does it! I'd go blind(er) trying to replicate his level of detail!

Tony

Hey Tony, I don't have any real updates to show right now, but I feel a response is necessary: You are way too kind! I try real hard and sometimes things work out pretty well, like the F-4E build above that Scott Wilson helped me out with A LOT! Without him, I had no real idea what I was building and what it should really look like, circa 1980 in Germany. If you are interested, I have a LONG build thread of this project here- and many, many cool photographs that Scott took himself of F-4's of all kinds.

1/32 Tamiya F-4E

Through this build, I gained a really cool friendship with Scott off-line and we have sent each other models, photos, decals and resin kits all for free. That is one of the many things I enjoy about our hobby and this site at ARC. There's a lot more to modeling than gluing pieces of plastic together!

Link to post
Share on other sites

Through this build, I gained a really cool friendship with Scott off-line and we have sent each other models, photos, decals and resin kits all for free. That is one of the many things I enjoy about our hobby and this site at ARC. There's a lot more to modeling than gluing pieces of plastic together!

Word!

Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...