The fun begins when I have finished fixing gaps and rescribing the lost details. The amount of gray paint really shows how many areas that needed to be worked on.
Before installing the tailfins I addressed the exhaust shrouds. I painted these Vallejo Metal Color Jet Exhaust. I think the results are too light with the real ones being almost black. But it looks alright compared to the screencap references.
Once the shrouds have cured I masked these off then I installed the tailfins. Not much shimming required this time.
Painting begins with a base of Tamiya Flat Black.
Then the usual marble coat of Tamiya Flat White.
This time, I tried adding another more random marble coat with Tamiya JGSDF Brown.
I hope these will add some tonal variation to the actual paintjob.
I then painted the wing bags in Model Air Aggressor Gray. These were then masked off.
I managed to find a decently high resolution scan of the original Hasegawa F-14 Kai painting guide so I’m using that as a reference. The F-14 Kai is in the usual 3 tone gray TPS scheme. I decided to work from the bottom up so the first gray is MIG Ammo Grey Blue for FS 35237. These were then masked off for the 2nd gray.
The next gray color is Mig AMMO Light Compass Ghost Grey for FS 36375. All the paints used were thinned and had Vallejo Glaze Medium added to reduce their opacity.
Once cured I carefully masked the demarcation line with the topside gray color with both masking tape and blutack.
The topside gray is Model Air Dark Ghost Grey for FS 36320. Since I was impatient I then removed the masking off the wing bags and the engine shrouds to check my work.
Glad to see the gradation effects from the brown color shows up in the paint work although they might be too subtle once I added glosscoats and weathering. We shall see.
The bottom looks alright too!
The decal sheet offers decals for the wing chevrons and the black pattern around the canopy but I thought they’d look better painted so out came the masking tape again.
Aizu 1mm thick masking tape is very handy for this build.
The instructions call for both the canopy pattern and the chevrons to be the same Gunship Gray color. However, looking at the screencaps the gray on the canopy should be much darker. It looks almost black in fact. So I decided to follow the screencap and paint this in Model Air Panzer Dark Grey. It’s a very dark gray that is almost black in color.
The chevrons on the wings remain as FS 36118. I used Model Air Medium Gunship Grey.
I figure since I painted almost everything, I’d go ahead and paint the walkways instead of relying on decals. So it’s masking time again!
These then quickly painted with Model Air German Grey.
After what feels like a looooong time, I can finally decal!
Build Log
Part 1 – Cockpit | Part 2 – Construction | Part 3 – Construction
Part 4 – Construction | Part 5 – Construction
Part 6 – Painting | Part 7 – Finishing