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F-14 from the top gun film


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Ok, I have to ask, it's been a while since the subject has come up...

Is the black-lions logo jet gonna make it on this sheet? Darren Roberts, Kstater94, and myself spent the entire night slow-motioning through every flying sequence in the movie and came to the conclusion that the Black Lions logo-ed jet gets at least 1/4th if not a full 1/3 of the screen time of all the jets. (look for it in Maverick's first duel with Jester, the flameout sequence, and the final dogfight). I notice that the right tail looked as though the black lions logo was painted OVER the fist of the fleet logo (as indicated by the yellow at both the top and bottom of the logo), whereas the left side had no yellow. This is also the jet that had the camera mounted on the phoenix pallet and on top of one of the right-side wing fences. It also bore the modex number 104, but had no names on the rail. Stencilling on the nose and intakes appear to be standard low-visability, but there was no squadron named on the lower fins and there was likewise no "Navy" on the sides of the engine nacelles. No idea what bureau number this jet was, but something tells me there is a good chance that wasn't painted at the time either.

I'm not too hot on the faux VF-1 or VFA-213 markings in the movie, but I'd definately do the Black-Lions (VF-213) logo jet.

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That probably wouldn't be the best way to go. This question has come up as seperate threads two or three times in the last month and the answer is usually find a different manufacturer that actually makes those colors.

Well, what I'm really after are the colors that closely match the requirements, not the exact color...

Because our hobby shops here doesn't really carry different paint brands... The only paint brand common here is from tamiya, and is also the cheapest. Anything from testors (model master), humbrol, gunze etc. is a rarity, and even if they have them, they don't have the colors I needed and are very expensive... <_<

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It certainly seems possible that there would be Tamiya mixes for these colors. Shoot, it's basically a matter of mixing black, white, possibly some blue. Or their different grays. It's just that I've never seen a mix recipe for these, though WWII color mixes aren't hard to find.

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It certainly seems possible that there would be Tamiya mixes for these colors. Shoot, it's basically a matter of mixing black, white, possibly some blue. Or their different grays. It's just that I've never seen a mix recipe for these, though WWII color mixes aren't hard to find.

Hmmm... :crying:

I wonder now if aircraft gray mixed with another gray shade will work... Tamiya's sky gray looks fine for the second color for me...

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Hmmm... :nanner:

I wonder now if aircraft gray mixed with another gray shade will work... Tamiya's sky gray looks fine for the second color for me...

There has been a couple of small threads on the Tamiya Paint TPS subject recently. Try my origional

http://s102164210.onlinehome.us/forums/ind...topic=96013&hl=

No definitive awnser however.

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  • 2 months later...

Looks pretty darn good to me, Jared! :blink: :cheers:

Couple of very minor things:

- The '104's. Leave two of them the way they are, for the tops of each wing, but of the other two (that go on each side of the nose), one should have the '10' slanted left, and one should have the '10' slanted right (with the 4 remaining un-slanted). For example:

104bx2.jpg

(I don't have the correct font, but you get the idea.)

Here's a photo showing this on the real thing:

topguniceman104im7.th.jpg

Also, if two of the '114's could be... chunkier, I guess is the best description. If you look at this photo, you can see how thick the black lines are:

topgun06gj6.th.jpg

Notice how little of the gray is showing in the center of the 4.

Other than that, I can't find anything else needing any more tweaking :woo: . The only other thing I'd suggest is that when you post the 'final' version, maybe try to make it as big and hi-rez as possible, then ppl can scale it down as necessary, depending on the scale they're building. Things that've been scaled down look a whole lot better than things that've been scaled up. ;)

Daniel

Edited by AP_Hancock
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AP_Hancock

The numbers on the nose are of some debate. I think when they were painted on the first two numbers applied at a different angel, not italicized. I think who ever put them on realized the stencil would not lay flat over the curved surface. But I could be wrong and they are italicized. I can add them in if there is a desire for them to be there.

I'll keep the lattest downloads in my signature so you don't have to keep looking all over for them.

Edited by Jared Bishop
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I think who ever put them on realized the stencil would not lay flat over the curved surface. But I could be wrong and they are italicized. I can add them in if there is a desire for them to be there.

Iceman's jet (in all the Miramar-Fallon sequences) was 160681, from VF-51, with a 'real-life' MODEX of 106. At the time, VF-51's nose MODEXes were slanted backward (see this photo from 1986, a year after the movie was filmed: http://www.dodmedia.osd.mil/Assets/1986/Na...C-86-11563.JPEG ). I think most likely they left the '10' as it was, painted over the '6', and applied a new '4', not bothering to make it make it match.

I think it's probably fine as-is; if (more like when... eventually) I build Iceman's Tomcat, I'd probably say the heck with actual accuracy--I'll take 'intended accuracy' and would prefer a version where all three digits match.

Just an idea, but how about including italicized versions for both the 104 and 114, like you've done with the 203? I mean, seeing as how 2/3 of the digits in the 104 are slanted, anyway, I think an all-slanted one might look better than an all-non-slanted one. Also, while most shots in the movie show a non-slanted 114, there was at least one Tomcat done in Mav's markings with a slanted 114 ( http://www.dodmedia.osd.mil/Assets/1990/Na...C-90-11795.JPEG ). (Remember that multiple jets were used, with the markings being somewhat interchangable, so you can't really say that one version is more correct than another.)

Daniel

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Looks good enough for me, at least, Jared!! :( Brian P may (or may not) see some stuff still to tweak on it (last I heard, he's traveling till at least this weekend), but I like it. :D

One last request, tho, and then I'm done. You've got the Tomcats covered well now, but could you also include the tail markings for the Migs? It's just a simple red star inside a yellow circle, so it should be pretty easy to do. I've been wanting to build an F-5 for awhile, and building one as a Mig-28 would be a perfect opportunity...

topgun17ll6.th.jpg

Daniel

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Ok I'll take a shot at the F-5 Mig. I still need someone to check the scale for me. I've cut them out an places them on my Tamiya kit and they seem to be ok. I've got a 1/48 tomcat I stipped and I'll be using the decals on that scale. So maybe this weekend I'll head down to the Hobby Town and pick up a Decal sheet to print some.

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Jared - Glad this is finally coming to a conclusion! Still on the list to meet with Tony, now sometime after the holiday...Finishing work and release of Deja Vu just made it to difficult and they have almost everything in storage. At this point, I think you've got all the info we possibly could get...

Cut out the artwork and taped them on the Tamiya Tomcat. Will try and get some pics later. Mostly everything is good on size. As we've found, squadron badges and numbers come in a variety of shapes and sizes on the jets they used for the movie. That being said - the 3 corrections I can offer is:

1. modex 114 is dead on for the smaller size, but that makes the 104 too small. You might want to increase 104 to the 'standard' 1/32 modex size. Against a set of decals, it does come out undersized.

2. The Vf1 and VF-213 tails are great. My printer freaked out on the color and made yellow a dark mustard and red a burnt, almost brown color, and the gray printed blue... I would shrink the Blue VF-213 Lions badge, or at least provide a 10/15% smaller version, as in the pics, it's overlayed on the VFA-213 movie badge on a number of pics of the right side.

3. The Bunos scale out at 1/48, not 1/32 so I would enlarge those. ON a similar notw, the Rescue arrows seem too long for 1/32 and are 'stretched' more than the ones used on the movie jet.

Looking great Jared. btw, the names seem to scale out to 1/32 right on.

It's so cool to see this project nearing completion! thanks for all your efforts!

-brian

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I'm working on the F/14A 1/48 from Revell Monogram right now in that scheme. I have done rework of other decal sheets of long time past with software, and also other sources to consider for decals is Flightsim.com. You can download the model as a matter of fact of an F/14 that is molded like Top Gun, edit the textures to get what markings you want/need, etc - and custom print them yourself. To me, if the model is for personal use, you shouldn't have to worry about copyright - heck, everyone does models based on movies, why not Top Gun, am I right? What is it now, 22 years since the film came out anyway? (Jeez, that makes me feel really old right there after what I just said....ARRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!)

Another suggestion is if you do your own markings like I am, you can go to Aftermarket sheets for the USS Enterprise, since that was where Peter Mitchell (Maverick) was based off of. I also know Goose's real name found out through the magic of DVD by zooming in on the rear of the canopy. If you need help making it out I'd be glad to give it to you.....good luck, for I'm working on the same thing right now!

John

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Not at all, I have done a 1/100 scale 747 using textures for the windows from Project Opensky (The ones out of the box were just not good enough for me) and there are excellent Top Gun models that were repainted by Dean Mountford on Flightsim.com's Website. Hope this helps - they are terrific resources to use when wanting niceley detailed windows and logos for Airliners, etc.

John

writer and creator of Flap's Flap at Flightsim.com

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I've been scrambling like mad over the last few days to finish the VF-103 Tomcat I'm working on by the end of the week (it's being done as a Christmas gift). It should be done by tomorrow, at which point I'll have plenty of free time to work on other stuff. At the top of my to-do list is a graphical placement guide for these markings, along with a text document with a lot of the info from this thread collected into one easy reference (Brian, I'll PM you copies of both first, to get your feedback on them). Hopefully that'll give folks everything they need to build an accurate depiction... :)

Daniel

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