Written by 5:10 pm On the Bench

WIP : Fujimi 1/72 RF-4C Phantom II Pt.5 – Finishing

Time to finish this thing. First an overall gloss coat to prep for decals.

The AirDOC decals are printed by Cartograph and look very good. However, all the aircraft numbers and codes are individually printed and need to be added 1 at a time.

I decided to use the slime lights from the Hasegawa sheet instead. I’ll save the AirDOC ones for a better-made build.

64-1047 had a striking shark mouth painted onto its nose during its deployment. It took a healthy dose of Mark Softer to get the shark mouth to conform and luckily it was quite robust and didn’t tear.

The AirDOC sheet isn’t clear with the placement of the marking since it shows only 1 side of the subject so I had to guesstimate. I skipped some of the less obvious stencils and then it’s another gloss coat before weathering begins.

The panel wash is the usual Mig AMMO Deep Brown Panel Wash.

It smells compared to the usual oil paint I use but it’s pre-mixed so is more convenient.

After about an hour of drying, it was time to wipe off the excess panel wash. I’ve read that facial sponge works so I gave that a go.

It does clean better but the one I used started to break off in clumps when damp with turpentine. It also works when dry although some force is needed to get rid of the dried oil wash.

Then I added filters to be bring down the overall contrast. I used medium gray, red and blue oil paints for this using the oil paint dot method.

With a damp paintbrush I worked front to back on the wings and tailfin and top to the bottom on the rest.

The result is subtle, but the contrast between the main colors and the marble coats are reduced and because I added red in random places, those areas look slightly warmer. Those areas in blue become slightly cooler in tone.

Fading is next. I used white oil paint for this. I dotted random spots all over the kit.

Again working with a damped brush, I slowly blended the oil paint with short strokes. There are now subtle fading in the paint surfaces.

For the exhaust area I added a filter with deep brown and black oil paints. I made sure to do it in an up to down strokes.

I then faded some panels with white and then used thinned black oil and randomly splotched the exhaust areas.

I did not do fading on the bottom since I figure it won’t be as exposed to the Sun. But photos show the bottom gets stained towards the back so I splotched the area with thinned deep brown oil paint. I worked in stages to build up the stains by waiting for each layer to dry first.

After another day of drying, I gave everything a flat coat and can finally put everything together. The horizontal stabs fiction fit with no problem. The nose gear and door fit quite nicely but the main gear doors only butt join to the bays which requires some careful cementing. The inside door struts are too long and were cut to the correct length.

And of course, disaster struck. A drop of cement dripped onto the finishing. So out with the buffing pad then a quick spray of gunship gray.

Once the gear was secure I added the stores starting from inside out: belly tank, pylons, ECM pod then wing tanks.

The masking tape on the clear parts was then removed carefully. I did OK with the masking with only minor touch-ups required. There’s a step between the back of the pilot’s canopy and the middle frame which I have to live with. It was the best all round fit I could manage. There’s also dust behind the camera windows. I tried blowing them with a rocket blower with no luck. Any masking tape residue was cleaned off with a cotton bud soaked with airbrush cleaner. I also brushed Future on some of them to bring back some of the shine.

Last on were the wingtip lights that I handpainted and shined up with Future and the pitot tube. I can finally call this unexpectedly challenging build done.

/long exhale…

Build Log
Part 1 – Construction | Part 2 – Construction | Part 3 – Construction |
Part 4 – Painting | Part 5 – Finishing

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