WIP : Academy 1/72 AH-64E ‘TNI-AD’ Pt.3 – Painting & Finishing
Time to paint and finish this build. I started with my usual black base and white marble coating. As we shall see later, it wasn’t that effective. The AH-64E fielded by the TNI-AD comes in a 2-tone camouflage of olive drab and green. The CJM decal sheet states that the olive drab is FS34031. I …...
WIP : Academy 1/72 AH-64E ‘TNI-AD’ Pt.2 – Construction
The rotor is next. The base kit is an AH-64D so I need to modify it to the one that equips the AH-64E. My reference for this comes from the Hasegawa AH-64D and E instruction sheets. I made sure they were the same size and then superimposed them together to get a better idea of …...
WIP : Academy 1/72 AH-64E ‘TNI-AD’ Pt.1 – Construction
For this year’s annual TNI aircraft build, I decided to combine it with my annual helicopter build and decided on getting the TNI-AD’s AH-64E Apache Guardian done. What was originally thought to be a straightforward build wasn’t to be. Unsurprisingly really… In any case, this is the base kit… As usual I...
WIP : Hobbyboss 1/72 F-5E Tiger II ‘Area 88’ Pt.2 – Painting & Finishing
The construction phase went quite smoothly but as we shall see, I had a few problems after that… First up is a base coat of black. The engine area was painted in Vallejo Metal Color Pale Burnt Metal and the nozzles with Vallejo Metal Color Exhaust Manifold. These were then masked off with the nozzles …...
WIP : Hasegawa 1/72 F-4J Phantom II Pt.3 – Finishing
BuNo 155800 NG-100, an F-4J, callsign Showtime 100, from VF-96 Fighting Falcons, was the aircraft flown by Pilot Lt. Randall ‘Duke’ Cunningham and RIO Lt. (jg) William ‘Willy Irish’ Driscoll when they scored their third, fourth and fifth kills to be the Navy’s only two ‘Aces’ of the Vietnam War....
WIP : Hasegawa 1/72 F-4J Phantom II Pt.2 – Painting
Instead of stripping the pebbly paint I decided to simply sand and buff smooth as much as I can. I could only do the best for the hard to reach areas like the inside of the inner pylons though. I also tried to improve the fit of the canopy onto the fuselage. This kit really …...
WIP : Hobbyboss 1/72 F-5E Tiger II ‘Area 88’ Pt.1 – Construction
This is a semi-serious build of an F-5E Tiger II. Semi-serious in that it will be wearing the markings of a fictional F-5E from the manga/anime series Area 88 by Shintani Kaoru. This F-5E was piloted by our hero, Shin Kazama from Chapter 5 to 10. This build however would not be possible without Hasegawa’s …...
WIP : Hasegawa 1/72 F-4J Phantom II Pt.1 – Construction
One of my oldest Shelf Queens, I started this kit in 2008 and had never finished it beyond the start of painting. I figured I should finally finish it up. My initial cockpit work from 2008. Belts were done with masking tape. The F-4J doesn’t have the arrowhead reinforcement plates on the stabilizers. These were …...
WIP : Hasegawa 1/72 F-16C Blk 30 Pt.2 – Painting & Finishing
Ok time to put paint onto plastic. For this build I’ve gone back to doing pre-shading: in this case, it’s black preshade over a base primer coat of light gray. In the 1980s, F-16C was still in its original sccheme of three shades of gray. I used AK 3rd Gen Pale Grey for FS36375 (bottoms, …...
WIP : Hasegawa 1/72 F-16C Blk 30 Pt.1 – Construction
While waiting for a spare canopy for my F-100F build, I decided to start on another SEAD aircraft, this time a 480th TFS Blk 30 F-16C based in Germany and deployed as part of a Hunter-Killer team with F-4Gs in the late 1980s. At this time, the HTS Pod hadn’t been developed yet so the …...
