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Top Gun 1986 F-14A (Tamiya 1/48 - in-flight twin build))


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On 4/5/2020 at 4:34 PM, crackerjazz said:

 In James Ingram's words,  I did my best but I guess my best wasn't good enough  : ) 

 

 

You almost got me there, lol.  The late James Ingram may have sung the tune, but the words came from the great Quincy Jones.. The Dude still is a great album.

Nice work on the pits so far.

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It's still is!  Velas brings back good memories!  Oops, you're right.  We always credit the vocalist and never the writer.

 

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I'm trying, Janne : )  But, boy, are those breakers tiny.  I actually used some gray oil wash  to define them and make the breakers stand out against the dark color, but I couldn't brush paint the individual breakers as the paint just soaks into the crevices.  So right now I just used a toothpick to paint just the breaker tips in deep black to make them pop out even more, picking them out one by one.

 

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I started weathering the floors and console sides as well.  Hey, I learned from the Daco book that the RIO's pedals don't have any function other than as foot rests to brace himself against in flight.  I just learned that now when I actually read the captions instead of just examining the pictures like I normally do, heheh.

 

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You're right, Janne, I see in the book that some of the breakers have yellow caps on them : )   Will work on those as well.  And everything should look better once I start picking out the knobs and switches.  Woops.. a wonky pedal.   I'll charge that to experience.   And glue ooze too.  Man, close up photos betray too much of one's sloppiness.

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The RIO pedals also had a small button on each, they were for the radio, one pedal button allowed internal communication, the other pedal button allowed external communication.

 

The yellow tipped circuit breakers were the C/B's required to be pulled prior to engine shut down and were to remain pulled until after engine start up. Basically, they were pulled anytime the engines weren't running and were pushed in by the RIO after engine start up.

 

Also, the stick boot cover (canvas covering at the base of the pilots joy stick) should be light grey, the exact color varies since it was made of canvas. And, there should be a non-skid strip just in front of the pilots and RIO pedals........and they were usually quite worn with some bare metal showing through.

 

Your cockpits look great, the only detail you are missing is the cigarette butt hiding under the RIO's seat and a candy wrapper under the pilots seat. 😄 

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...

Hi GW8345, so that's what those buttons on the RIO pedals are for : )    Hi Thadeus, that would probably work -- I'll have to give that a try.    I haven't had much modeling time lately due to work, but was able to add the IP decals and painted the canvas covers.   I probably have to change the color of the stick boot cover but, yeah they do vary in the pics.   They're greenish in the the DACO pics but grey in others, like in a YT vid I saw below.   I chose some greenish color just to create some color variation.  After having had this experience of applying IP decals,  I think I'll stick to PE and film next time, which is way easier to put together.  

 

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YT vid

 

I'm not sure if the canvas cover balloons too much in the Eduard cockpit. It looks as if the pilot is hiding a cat in there : )  so  I tried to trim it down a little and carve up some folds in the fabric with the Xacto blade as it was too smooth.  I lost the right-hand side box in one of the pits so I had to scratch one.   

 

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Also had to fix painting mistakes on the consoles and cleaned up the edges.   I see cockpit painting needs a lot of correcting and re-correcting as almost all of the painting is done by hand. Would love to get my hands on some 3D-printed color F-14 panels someday.  Still have to touch up the canvas covers with some flat clear coat.

 

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I used the Tamiya decals on the IPs.  They had that dot-matrix printed kind of look on them, but they're the only ones I could find in in-flight mode.  Had to do some trimming to make them fit. 

 

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 I failed to take pics but I botched up both RIO decals.  Anyway, they had these black lines on a green background that don't look right.   But now that I think of it, the decal must have been designed for applying on the back of the clear part on the Tamiya so that the colors and characters are reversed when viewed from the front?  I'm not sure now, but I faintly remember seeing the numbers were reversed on the decal.   The decal is gone now so I couldn't confirm.   I just had to look up pics of an in-flight RIO radar screen and tried my best to get a similar effect using green paint.   This vid I saw showed the screen at work.  Those lines keep move around:

 

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Also found some ribbon wire which I remember Chuck recommended in one of his builds.   They have very fine stranded wire inside --- really great for duplicating the coiled wire for the utility light.   I cut up a small piece around some bare 30AWG wire and colored it with a Sharpie marker, since paint tends to thicken the wire and forms webbing between the coils.  Got only one done after a couple hours' work.  I was wondering if Tamiya got it right for the right hand-side RIO screen decal.  Couldn't find any videos of it at work except for some DCS ones and they looked similar to the Tamiya decal.   As for that little screen on top, the decal also has black lines on green but I'll leave them alone for now.

 

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Was able to put on the shields for the pilot's IP.  Here's a pic of both IPs complete with decal-trimming mistakes:

 

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Will try to get the other RIO utility light coil done, as well as find a better color for the stick boot covers.

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Maverick's cockpit on the left and Iceman's on the right.   Or maybe Iceman's on the left.    Oh well, they can take whatever they like... the pits look the same, anyway.   They were weathered by the same guy : )

 

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Goose's station.   Cool blobs of white paint on those switches -- how could I have missed those.

 

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Need to correct those paint blobs.  I still find it hard to get the proper paint-thinner mix for just the right surface tension.  Just need to add some more PE parts and I'll be able to close up the forward fuselage halves.  Then I could add in the ejection seats and crew later on in the build. 

 

 

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On 3/28/2020 at 11:49 AM, crackerjazz said:

 

OK, I think the more I mess with the nozzles the uglier they become, heheh.

 

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That should be enough work on the nozzles; will move on to other parts of the kit.    An F-14 isn't all nozzles after all : )

 

CJ,

Spoken like a true artist, once you've achieved the look... its time to let them be. As an

artist, I'll keep tweaking a painting to get it where I want it to be. But, if I keep messing

with it - I risk loosing the perspective I was shooting for. Those are some of the bested

looking Exhaust Nozzles I've seen, Tomcat or otherwise! "You went Yard on those."

 

“Gentlemen, we will chase perfection, and we will chase it relentlessly, knowing all the

while we can never attain it. But along the way, we shall catch excellence.”
 Vince Lombardi

 

I'd remembered that quote from Coach Lombardi, and applied it to making models.

"We strive for perfection, even though perfection is unattainable. When looking for it,

we instead find the exceptional. Therefore, exceptional things helps us to then create

these exquisitely looking models and much more."

― The Underdog

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  • 1 year later...

Underdog, John, Spook, thanks guys! 

 

I'm posting some of my GB pics because I missed the deadline so I'll be continuing my build here.

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A nod to Fasteagle : )     I believe he used the same wire.

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I was using MRP paint for the black at first but was having trouble getting good coverage.

 

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Found some Gaianotes flat black at the LHS and used that instead.   Got some of their flat white too.   Gaianotes black lays on smooth and thin and covers really well.  And their white is amazing and will cover black easily.

 

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Didn't know what I was doing at this stage and was really worried about how everything would turn out.   But I see everyone's blackbasing results and I'm just amazed at what they can achieve so I just soldiered on.   I used the Uschi splatter templates to do the mottling.   Kept worrying about whether the whites should have a hard or soft edge.   Couldn't make it consistent.   Had to freehand the harder-to-reach areas like the tunnels where I couldn't lay the templates flat onto the surface.   I now realize how good others are in controlling their airbrushes to make fine mottling by hand.

 

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The color seems to take on a different hue with different backgrounds.  Here she is set on some darker blue paper.

 

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That clears up my initial worry about blackbasing : )     Covering the model in black just goes against my best instincts but I can see now that it does work.   I still find it scary, though, because it's not like other methods like oil dot filters where you see your results slowly building up.   Each blackbasing step is just in stark contrast to the others - from black to mottling to final color.

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9 hours ago, crackerjazz said:

Thanks, Steve, Aigore!  For gray-basing, do you just replace the black with gray?

Well, I always just thought of it as my special way of preshading until Joe named it gray basing 😛

But when I compared it to black basing it seems I do sort of a negative of black basing where I start over a gray primer and make darker and lighter squiggles on top of it. Essentially serving the same purpose as black basing.

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Makes sense, Janne.   Will need to give that a try, too!

 

The template loads up with paint, clogging up the smaller openings.   At first tried cleaning it with a toothbrush and some thinner -- that didn't go too well.   Cleaning it with a rag didn't work quite too well either as it would snag on the branches.   Finally decided to do it the easy way.  Swish it in a container pretty much the way you'd etch a home-made PCB : )    I use lacquer paint so this is lacquer thinner.

 

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Nice and clean : )   

 

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Can't wait to give that top a coat of final color : )   I actually have some questions about the paint scheme -- will have to post some pics later.

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Thanks, BastianD!   Aigore, thanks  but I don't think the templates worked too well for me.  The light ghost gray for the underside was ok but the topside was a disaster so I've stripped it again -- twice already.   Since the colors are heavily thinned and the black underneath shows through, the paint's combination with the black seems to be producing some strange bluish hue.    Will have to rethink how I proceed with this.  I studied the paint schemes from different sources online and I'm a bit confused.  The  standard TPS scheme seems to be turning out too dark - again maybe because of the black-basing? (not really sure).   I may need a little help, too, with the colors.

 

For the pic below, I'm assuming there is no FS 36375 (Light Ghost Gray) as that just goes on the underside?  

 

And would these assumptions be correct:

FS 35237 - Medium Gray - 1,2,4,6

FS 36320 - Dark Ghost Gray - 3, 5 including the spine

 

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3 hours ago, crackerjazz said:

Since the colors are heavily thinned and the black underneath shows through, the paint's combination with the black seems to be producing some strange bluish hue.    I may need a little help, too, with the colors.

 

For the pic below, I'm assuming there is no FS 36375 (Light Ghost Gray) as that just goes on the underside?  

 

And would these assumptions be correct:

FS 35237 - Medium Gray - 1,2,4,6

FS 36320 - Dark Ghost Gray - 3, 5 including the spine

 

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If for some reason the primer (black) you have applied "blends" with the colours you mention, you could apply a layer of gloss varnish to "seal" the primer. Otherwise, you could use Gunze's grey primer that already has a hue you can take advantage of.

 

Just my two cents.

 

Sernak

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Fasteagle107, thanks!   : )   Hi Sernak, that seems like a great idea.   I think my issue was mostly because I used a template and the edges of the mottling were really sharp, and the contrast between the black and white was so stark that it looked unnatural when the thinned gray was sprayed on top of it.  And combined with the super-thinned gray letting the black show -- it was like blue ink bleed-through.  That's the best I could describe the results I got.   I'm trying out Doogs' gunship gray mottling before the ghost gray this time.

 

Thanks for the info, Brian!   Stripped the F-14s again.  Only when I'm happy with the canvasses am I going to attach your Fightertown decals.  This is how much I value your Fightertown Top Gun set : )

 

Like they say -- Try and try until you die!   If you do die at least you tried : )  Seems like if there's one thing I got good at in this build it's stripping paint.

 

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Used the upgraded method Doogs did on his Intruder YT vids ---  black, gunship gray mottling (no white and no templates), then ghost gray.   I'll be trying out his method of mottling the ghost gray on, too, and making some more random patches and fades before spraying it on wider.    But all in all it looks better than the disastrous results I had yesterday which I should have taken pictures of for comparison.   I was so disappointed, though, that I didn't even want to see it documented.   I might still use the template on a few areas.  I do see some weathered subjects with a few hard-edged weathered spots here and there, but I won't be using them entirely anymore.   

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Take your painted models outside to test and compare the results. After all the picture you have posted above is taken in natural light.

 

When you try to compare hues using artificial light you will always get the wrong impressions. At least this is what I have noted on my painted models.

 

Painting models is an extensive and complicated subject by itself, particularly when you're trying to achieve the result we see in the picture. But, as I have said many times in the past, the level of scale modellers we have in the forum is definitely a source that can help solve a lot of our problems.

 

Looking forward to see some progress on your Tomcats Joe!

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