Crap. It’s been almost 3 months since I did anything else to this build. Today, I finally got around fixing the demarcation lines. And boy did I have a ‘great’ time doing it.
First I used blutack to mask all over the kit. And ended up not doing anything to it for 3 weekends. And what happened? For some reason the blutack left some sort of residue that of course, couldn’t be rubbed off. So I ended up having to spray everything all over again.
So what I did was for each color, I’d slowly blutack and spray to fix the soft camouflage pattern. Took awhile. Over 3 weekends in fact. But I… am… done! In the process however, I lost the shade of green I originally used, so I ended up respraying all the green again. I also quickly masked off the grey parts and sprayed that on too. The left stablizer also fell off but that’s a small easy fix. So all the major parts (except for the parts that need to be white) are… done! BOO YEAH!
Here’s a before and after look at the camo:
Up next will be the rest of the detail parts. Won’t be long now. Won’t be long…
Another 3 months has gone by and we have moved to our own place. Ongoing house matters put this on the backburner. Now it’s back on the worktable.
Gear has now been painted and ready for assembly. Unlike some modelers, I don’t even try to mask the wheels before painting the tires. I just freehand everything. Carefully. Aircraft kits tend to have a lot of itty-bitty parts so this might take awhile even after everything has been put together.
I… am… edging… closer… to… finishing!
Typically for me, something bad happens to my builds about 70% into the project. I’d then have to spend some time and elbow grease to fix the problem(s). I thought it won’t happen for this one, seeing as how I was 90% into the build. But Mr. Murphy must have known and well… disaster has struck.
In my zeal to quickly finish this thing, I decided to use spray paint to finish the inside of the air intake. And in my zeal to get it over quickly, the spraypaint ended up being too thick. Sigh… so now the air intake looks like something exploded in it and messed up the lip.
After looking at it for 15 minutes, I realized there’s only 2 things that can be done:
- Carefully saw the lip and the intake apart then paint separately. Of course that would mean having to fix the whole outside of the intake later
- Keep things as is and slowly sand the inside of the lip smooth and redo the color again
Of course, I also realized I should have keep them separate in the first place. But I’m an idiot.
Both aren’t easy solutions, but I’m leaning towards the latter. Which still bugs me either way. More delay! Pah!
Back to the Viper! Now it’s time for all the itty-bitty details. First up are the weapons. Aggressor aircraft are usually armed with one inert AIM-9 Sidewinder and an ACMI (Air Combat Maneuvering Instrumentation) pod. I got these from Hasegawa’s Aircraft Weapons Sets C and D respectively. The inert (blue) bands are not included so I had to mask off and paint the bands.
Inert rounds and ACMI pods come in a variety of colors actually. Red, blue, white and various shades of grey. I went with grey as it’s the color shown in my reference photos.
Spent the last two evenings doing the decals. These are aftermarket from Two Bobs.
I must say these are very nice compared to Hasegawa ones. They are very thin and handle Mark Softer very well. There is tissue residue around the decals which I hope won’t cause silvering. I’ll have to wipe down the kit with a damp lint-free cloth when I’ve given it some time for the decals to dry.
After this is weathering!
All decals on! And I must say there is some silvering of the decals. So I did another round of gloss coat. Looks quite OK now. Minute silvering in some angles but it’s much much better now.
And this was when I realized the instructions on Two Bob’s decal sheet was wrong! The checkerboard pattern is not supposed to be on the tip of the tailfin as depicted on the instructions. It’s supposed to be slightly below. Sigh… that’s what I get for not looking at enough reference photos. Too late to fix it now.
Anyway, before commencing with weathering, I glued on the landing gear. Which isn’t how I normally do things. Normally I’d weather everything before putting them all together but I couldn’t resist. Let’s hope I won’t regret doing it this way.
I did leave out the weapons, the pitot tube and some of the smaller antennae blades till after weathering though.
The details in the gear wells are actually quite bare compared to the real thing, but it should look much better after a wash.
I use artist oil diluted with turpentine for my wash. Took me a lot longer than I used to. Probably rusty. I ended up making the wash too thick so I had to spend some time removing excess oil paint. I’ve also forgotten how badly turpentine smelled. Lots of ventilation required!
The wash makes the panel lines pop out which isn’t realistic by any means (friendships have been broken over this sort of thing). However, I chalk it up to artistic license as I find it gives the whole kit a more 3D-look.
I added the final touches to the kit. This includes the remaining antennae blades and the weapons. The ACMI pod and Sidewinder are mounted with CA glue.
Another small detail that Hasegawa left out of their mold is the AOA (Angle Of Attack) vanes. These are very small needle-like protrusions on each side of the nose. Based on a suggestion by good friend Gerald, I cut out the tips off safety pins to simulate the probes. Then I drilled holes onto the radome and CA glued the tips into place. These are then painted the same grey as the radome.
There’s also the matter of the static dischargers on the tailfin, wings and stabilizers. I tried fishing line but it’s so thin the CA glue had nothing to stick on. I’m considering brass rod, stretched sprue or copper wire. Who knows, something else might popup.
I’m planning to enter this kit to the 7th Jakarta Miniature Model & Expo held by Peter & Partner, a local model shop so right now I’m debating if I should add a simple base for it. Something along the lines of this. First though, I better make sure I finish this before 6 December (last day of registration).
Build Log
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3
