1/72 Trumpeter F-105d bare metal

[Bobo1953]

hi everybody!

this time i'm gonna break the rules and publish on this forum section rather than the "display case" which i deem to receive little attention in our forum. hope that i won't get a stick hit on my fingers...

yeah, my guys, i have built the thud and with her i have completed my 1/72 "century series", which makes me, modestly, PROUD!

the previous project, the super sabre, was a former step in this achievement, but the lack (!!!) of the warning red stripes on the decal sheet -i am waiting stripe decals to be delivered as aftermarket item- make her labeled as "incomplete", thence i will publish the album only after she will receive her due warning stripes.

both kits are trumpeter's, and i might say that, decals accidents apart -i also had ro resort to a set of xtradecal's stars and bars as the blue of the original ones was too light and somewhat metallic- they both did build with plain pleasure, with the due challlenge of complex steps,  but what i got from those two projects was truely, even in the most hazardous passages, just pure fun.

i confess that i had never tried trumpeter before, but if the going is this, i'd dare to compare the quality of detail and engineering with -let me add an "almost"- tamiya!

the thud is a true war machine, born to bear at supersonic speed a nukeload in her bellly, and bare metal like this she's even more warlike and deadly than with the s.e.a. camo and the pure wild force of tenths of iron bombs hanging.

i know that someone's  brows will rise up and fall back to their naps about the type of green i choose for the fuselage.

actually, i feel the need to tell you something about the apparently eccentric whim that brought me to choose f.s. 34102 euro 1 dark green for the green area.
i had used that paint only once in my life when building the a-10 warthog, enjoyed the euro camo effect, and stowed it away with the rarely used paints.
when it came to thiis thud's green, i had something dark in the back of my mind, and now i know what it was: the black spine of the monogram "action" thud artwork of my childhood.
thus i tested a lot of different greens that could be, from vallejo nato green, to mr. hobby field green, to f.s. 34079 -which btw, also looking at some pics, should have been the "right" one- but each and everyone looked too light and a somewhat faded green.
in search of a darker and "greener" green i tested also r.l.m. luftwaffe's schwarzgrun, and usmc green. no way: too gray the former, too dark the latter.
eventually, the classic "lightbulb" went on in my head, i did some archaeology and brough to the light the euro 1.

i tested it.
it was definitely not the green that appears in most of the pictures i had seen, though there seem to be there exceptions, but IT was the color i had had in my brains for so long: not black (that btw was on the very early thuds) but dark and green enough. hit!

i will be happy to get your comments if you will have a look at google photos album here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/4wjoisCWz2FWKNbAA

yeah, the fuse and the canopy have different hues, rather densities. this is due to a stupid accident that brought me to paint gloss aluminum the canopy apart in order to latter mask the yellow seals...only to realize, seals masked and done, that i should have painted it green! by then i had already discarded the eduard masks so i masked again, but only along the frames limits using my "maketar canopy survival kit"  -i recommend it!- and micro tapes, and handbrush painted green.

unfortunately, the model master acryl fs 34102 is particularily sensitive to air or hand brushing, so there's a difference. perhaps someday if i get inspired i will pass a coat of heavily thinned paint hoping that it would end out lighter...

it might be that i've gone out of my head, but i'm even sure that this paint is no extravagancy albeit the true color! and i'm not the only case... it seems that this indulgence is more diffused among the modelers than one could expect, for i have seen several thuds in all scales that had been painted with a dark and green spine, not the faded green (fs 34079, and various shades of o.d.) which should be canonically perfect for f-84 and -a tad darker- for f-86.

best ciaos, my friends, season greetings to all, and...happy modeling!

bobo.