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Greetings everyone,

 

Thanks for stopping by!


It is finally great to be coming back to this hobby after taking several years off this hobby to concentrate on my pilot career development. A lot has happened in those years and fast forward to 2019, with my career now stabilised, I can take time to get back into this hobby which I have always loved. I have since gotten a new airbrush and completed 3 airliner models as well as to play around with the airbrush. The first airbrushed model was a Thomson Boeing 787 and the most recent finish being an A380 in the livery of Thai Airways which can be seen here! Both are 1/144 scale. The second airbrushed model was a 1/200 Singapore Airlines anniversary special Boeing 747-400 and was gifted to my flight school as an appreciation gift. 

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Now that I have sort of gotten the hang of the airbrush, it is time to dive into my comeback project proper. I am still learning as I speak so I will welcome any form of feedback along the way that can help me improve on my airbrushing techniques. Without further ado, allow me to introduce this project proper.

 

It is Academy's 1/32 rendition of the Israeli F-16I SUFA which I bought many years ago, but haven't gotten round to building it till now. I do not plan on investing in aftermarket resin products as I would like to exercise my creativity licence in scratchbuilding in order to enhance the kit parts. The only aftermarket product I will be investing will be IAF F-16C/D stencils with bonus SUFA stencils by Sky's Decals as I noticed some errors in the kit decals. More on that later.

 

Starting off, I didn't follow the instructions which started in the cockpit, but focused on detailing the wheel wells first. While I could get away with not detailing up 1/72 or 1/48 kits, 1/32 feels totally naked leaving them as it is, so I worked on sprucing up the wheel wells with spare wiring, soldering flux, cables, stretched sprue, rods and whatever I can find lying around to enhance the realism. Using whatever references I can find, this was what I ended up with. Pardon the white mess though in some of the parts 🙂

 

NLG well

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The left MLG well

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The right MLG well

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The MLG well

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Landing gear struts

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Lastly for the intake, I tackled the seam lines by gluing the entire trunk consisting of all 4 parts together and roughly cleaned up the seam lines with putty and sanding. I then used the pour and dump method for the intake. Several rounds later and creating a huge mess lol, this was what I got. I'm really happy with the way it turned out though I will go back to touch up on the strut later! 🙂

UyxStWa.jpg

 

Thanks for looking!

Qian

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thanks for the kind words gents. 

 

Hi Romain, bonjour! That is a really great looking Sufa you have. Thanks for sharing and I hope my Sufa can turn out just as good! 👍

 

Anyway work on this bad boy continues. Since this is my comeback build after many years, I have committed to super-detailing this kit as much as I could through scratchbuilding or making small corrections to make it an accurate looking Sufa. In my opinion, there are four areas on a model that will be of interest to a viewer and they are the cockpit, wheel wells, engine nozzles and weapons. Being little kits itself within the kit, I have been spending a lot of time in these areas in enhancing the details.

 

This link depicting a Sufa walkround has been a great source of reference for me. http://kfir.hobbyvista.com/walkarounds/sufa.htm

 

Since the last update, work has continued to improve the wheel wells, the assembly of the spine and CFTs on the top fuselage as well as some preliminary work on the cockpit. 

 

Assembly of a rear-facing antenna Part K36 beside the tail hook. Honestly I didn't like the PE part where the part sits on as it is rather large and can't conform nicely on the curved fuselage. I substituted the PE with Tamiya epoxy putty and then cut and sanded into shape. I am much happier with the way it looks.

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The Sufa has multiple funny looking antennas all round the fuselage to house sensors and other equipment. According to the reference photos, there seem to be some strengthening plates on where those antennas mate with the fuselage. Again these plates were scratchbuilt with epoxy putty and sanded. Looks like some cleaning up is required. 😂

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One of the most prominent add-ons on the Sufa is the addition of CFTs to enhance the range of the aircraft to carry out long distance strike missions. According to reference photos, there is a seal running through the entire length on the CFT. This was replicated using stretched sprue and glued in place.

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Work has started on the cockpits as well. While the Academy parts were decent, it still could use a bit of enhancements to busy up the look. This is the rear cockpit glareshield enhanced with some wiring. Also I have added some canopy locking struts on the sides which was made using stretched sprue.

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And another look at the intake. I have cleaned up the strut and painted it steel. Note the bump in the intake to accommodate the larger NLG of the Sufa. The associated NLG doors and tyre will be corrected too so stay tuned for that.

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And here is the overall progress thus far to date. Next up will be to shoot a coat of black primer on the wheel wells followed by the white and detail painting.

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Thanks for looking and stay tuned for more updates!

 

Cheers!

Qian

 

 

 

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Thanks weirich1!

 

Work on this continues. The main and nose wheel wells have finally got some colour on them. It was a time-consuming process to get the wirings right according to eyeball, and also painting them in the right colours. But it was great fun too paying attention to all that detail. I was delighted with the result as the black primer beneath the white gave a really nice shadow effect which helped to pick up the details (and flaws). I finished off with a light black wash to punch up more details. Also started work on the kit ejection seats too.

 

Here is the progress thus far to this day.

 

The main wheel wells. Gear struts are just dry-fitted for a little look-see. Not too sure though if the blue wiring is a little too bright? Can Viper experts confirm this for me?

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Left side

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Right side

fCPE0EC.jpg 

 

The nose wheel well. 

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And lastly the ejection seats. To replicate the sheep skin effect on the seats, I simply applied Tamiya white putty and while it was still wet, used a little wood skewer to run over the putty and applied dots on the seat. The effect pleased me a lot and should look good with some paint. I also scratchbuilt the belts using aluminium foil and leftover PE as I felt the kit ones were a little miserable.

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Next up will be the cockpit detailing and painting. I have got a few days off from flying so hopefully I can get a little more progress coming along.

 

Thanks for looking and stay tuned for more updates!

 

Cheers!

Qian

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  • 2 weeks later...

Cheers guys!

 

Small update today. The cockpit tub has been complete. As mentioned before, the cockpit is one of the four areas that I feel a viewer will pay attention so I did spend some time on them. The Academy cockpit is nice on itself but that didn't stop me from adding some bits and pieces of extra stuff to busy up the look. The instructions manual is always the basis for my assembly, but I always supplement the manual with reference photos of the real thing. The additional stuff added included the landing gear locking mechanism in the front cockpit and also added some oxygen hoses for the aircrew. These were scratch-built using stretched sprue, leftover wiring and Tamiya tape.

 

The cockpit instrument panels

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The ejection seats. Note the WSO seat has the data recorder above the oxygen bottle removed.

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The cockpit tub.

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With that, I can finally close up the 2 fuselage halves and get the main assembly going.

 

Thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

 

Cheers

Qian

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  • 2 weeks later...

Update!

 

Finished up the PW F100-229 engine nozzle. Instructions called for the collector ring to be painted metallic grey. This was incorrect as the ring on the 229 is more of a bronze-gold colour. To get the colour close enough to the eyeball, I mixed the colours of clear yellow, gold, copper, iron and aluminium to achieve more or less the correct look. An oil wash was then given to darken it slightly. I also can't help but notice that there are many random burn marks on the interior of the burner petals. This was replicated by dotting some black paint and then giving some streaks.

 

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And the overall progress to date. Next up, PAINT! 🙂

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Thanks for looking!

 

Cheers

Qian

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On 5/30/2019 at 3:36 AM, kurnass77 said:

Looks quite nice so far mate!

Follow your progress and ,despite not a real fan,your Airbus look terrific!!!

 

Gianni

 

Cheers Gianni! Thanks for the kind words regarding my A380. I'm glad you liked it. The A380 was a practice ground for me in getting the hang of my airbrush as I'm still rather new to it. I'm still discovering and learning new things about my airbrush as I continue on this SUFA. 👍

 

Qian

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  • 2 weeks later...

Update time!

 

Finally managed to get some work done. Have been doing little works here and there in between my flights and now have something significant to update you all with. Paint has finally come on the under sides and is an opportunity for me to try a new painting technique! This is a technique I am trying for the first time instead of the common grey priming and black pre-shading which I see a lot here. Before the Light Ghost Grey camo was sprayed, I primed the entire model with Mr Surfacer black which also serves as a pre-shade. The effect aims to give a shadow effect for the light grey as well as to to give some depth into the model for added realism. After studying many reference photos of Israeli F-16s, I found that the Sufas are not as weathered as the earlier Baraks and Netz in operation for much longer. Nevertheless, I started off by spraying random marbling patterns of Light Ghost Grey to give the effects of weathering. Once I was happy with the marbling effect, I sprayed thin layers of grey to tone the black areas down until I was happy with the effect. The aim was to give random grey patterns with different shades on the underside to simulate weathering. 

 

Let me know what you guys think? Too much? Too little? Or just nice? 🙂

 

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Thanks for looking!

 

Cheers

Qian

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 6/24/2019 at 10:26 AM, Manuel J. Armas S. said:

Great build...
If you can change the nose cone for the tamiya ones
F-16I nose cone is shape off
Greetings

 

Thanks Ron and Manuel. Yes I am aware of the shape issue of the Academy nose cone. Unfortunately I do not have a spare Tamiya cone to replace the kit one so this is a small error that I will live with.

 

In the meantime, the topside camouflage is being masked and sprayed. It's a lot of fun trying to get the demarcation lines between the 3 colours right to the eye. Instead of sharp demarcations, it is more of a blended demarcation and is something I am hoping to get right. I will post an update sometime around the next week or so when I have finished the camouflage so stay tuned!

 

Cheers

Qian

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On ‎6‎/‎27‎/‎2019 at 10:26 AM, Qian said:

 

Thanks Ron and Manuel. Yes I am aware of the shape issue of the Academy nose cone. Unfortunately I do not have a spare Tamiya cone to replace the kit one so this is a small error that I will live with.

 

In the meantime, the topside camouflage is being masked and sprayed. It's a lot of fun trying to get the demarcation lines between the 3 colours right to the eye. Instead of sharp demarcations, it is more of a blended demarcation and is something I am hoping to get right. I will post an update sometime around the next week or so when I have finished the camouflage so stay tuned!

 

Cheers

Qian

https://www.ebay.com/itm/TAMIYA-F-16C-THUNDERBIRDS-60316-PARTS-RADOME-1-32/293119876036?hash=item443f4e5bc4:g:qsYAAOSwnK9ZPyoh

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  • 1 month later...

Finally an update!

 

Painting the camo was a lot harder than I anticipated! :woot.gif: 

 

After analysing more reference photos of the Sufa, I noticed that the camo colours do not have sharp transitions, but rather they have diffused edges. The transitions were more apparent on the CFTs so it wasn't a case of simply mask with tape and spray. I wanted to try something new in order to get that transition right. Thankfully through a Su-27 build I came across online, the modeler used paper templates of the camo by scaling up the instructions to match his model and then cut them out. The resulting airbrushing gave an effect I think closely matched the camo patterns of the Sufa. I'll leave the link of the build here! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kj0i1yFX-lI&t=1268s 

 

With that, I dug up my old instructions manual for my Kinetic Sufa built long ago, I scaled up the sheet by 2.69x on an A3 paper to get the correct scale for 1/32.

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I then cut out the 3 colours individually and paste them on my model. Problem I found that since the paper templates were in 2D and with the complicated shape of the Sufa, some of the templates were of the wrong sizes. So I had to improvise here and there in order to get the template right. I tested it out on the horizontal stabs for a little look-see, not bad!

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This was followed by the main body. Of course it wasn't smooth-sailing as some oversprays happened here and there. But no biggie, just touch it up and go from there. Overall I'm really happy with the way the final camo turned out. Do let me know what you think!

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Next update, weapons and decals! 

 

Thanks for looking!

 

Cheers

Qian

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Update!

 

Started applying the decals. Now she's really starting to gain familiar looks! I did went back to repaint the radome as I felt it was too dark as well as touch up on the camo to improve the look before applying the decals. There is an error on the kit markings for the stencils. Academy printed the stencils orange when in the real aircraft, it is more of a pinkish orange. I managed to grab some stencils from Sky's Decals which provided the correct stencil colours as well as bonus stencils for the Sufa. I was delighted with the product from Sky's Decals as they were some of the softest decals I have ever used. They conformed nicely without silvering. The only problem was that the decals were sized for the Tamiya kit, but hey nothing too hard to play around with the decals to get them in the right place on this kit. The Star of David roundels and Negev Squadron markings were from the kit though. There's still slight silvering on the tail flash though despite lots of Mark Softer. 

 

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And she has gotten her legs too. The time spent adding all the various plumbing and wiring are reaping their rewards now!

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The AAMs are done too!

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Thanks for looking!

 

Cheers!

Qian

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  • 2 weeks later...

Small update!

 

Started weathering. Now she's really starting to come to life. As Sufas are extensively used for operations, I opted to give her a battle-hardened look. Reference photos show the CFTs are considerably more dirty than the rest of the fuselage. There are also plenty of stains too on the underside especially around the undercarriage. Weathering was exclusively done using oil washes. Hope its not too much?

 

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The 370 gallon tanks were also weathered according to the reference photos!

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And lastly, the SUFA is equipped with a slightly different NLG door to accommodate its larger gear. This was scratchbuilt, sprayed and an oil wash given to punch up the details. Not perfect but looks the part. Hope the rest of the gear and the LANTIRN nav pod will do its best to hide! Haha

Ik5Qymw.jpg

 

Thanks for looking!

 

Cheers

Qian

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Hi guys,

 

Slowly inching closer to the finish line. I finished off the GBU-15s, targeting pods and hung the stores beneath the wings. Now all is left is to polish the canopy, work on the canopy frame, attach the last few fiddly bits and she should be just about done.

 

The GBU-15s

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Heres the latest batch of photos under natural lighting.

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One of my last few tricks I will try on this build is to use some iridescent film which I cut into a circle and glued into place on the LITENING pod lenses. I was happy with the effect and looks just like the reference photos on the real pod. Now this trick will go onto the HUD too which will be the final icing on the cake before I roll it off to the finish line.  

X1AIjHD.jpg

 

Thanks for looking!

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