KUROK

Hello all,
One of these days you WILL see a LSP project from me!  Not today...
In the meantime, here is a project I actually got finished.
It's the new tool Eagle kit from a somewhat crappy 1970s sci fi TV show.
The plot lines in those shows were silly...but the special effects were totally cool and I loved the "Eagle".
This new kit is a far cry from the old Fundimensions/MPC kit we had.  This one is accurate in shape and has modern standards of fit.
I needed an "off white" paint to match the studio model and I found a craft paint called "bisque" that fit the bill.
I watched several youtube videos and experimented a lot in order to learn how to airbrush craft acrylics.  It was a learning curve but I enjoyed it.
The tail cones are sprayed with alclad polished aluminum.  To get a brushed metal look, I first primed them with gloss Tamiya black.
Once hardened, I chucked into a drill and spun while holding steel wool against it.  This give the gloss black a texture that yielded the brushed metal appearance I wanted once alclad was sprayed.  Plus I saved a little money by not buying the metal engine bell set!
I did employ the window frames from a Paragrafix photoetch set.  These look great and fit well.
For clear coats I did some of it with Future but I still struggle with getting a consistent airbrush coat that is not "pebbly".
So I fell back to an old reliable standard...MicroScale gloss and flat.  I had some thirty year old bottles that still worked fine.
Here's a couple iPhone photos...

I hope they downsize the latest 1/48 Eagle 2 kit with the lab/docking pod and separately available spine booster to 1/72.

"Son, your ego is writing checks your body can't cash." Really liking the finish, looking forward to seeing her in decals.
 
Cheers,  Rockie

Really like the painting process on this bird.

I started working on another 1/48 aircraft on September 9th. Tamiya’s F-14A has been a dream, I literally took this from a box of sprues to a ready to paint aircraft in 7 days, maybe about 20 hours total working time. This included converting the landing gear from extended to stowed. I had to make supports for the front gear bay to hold up the gear doors, and as there were 5, it was a little bit of a pain, fit was mostly good, but some small gaps on doors 3/4. In the rear, a little bit more work because the doors were not designed to fit into the fuselage. I had to make a new set of doors to fit because the original set were not finished, it was easier to make than fill and sand. My biggest disappointment with this kit is the lack of IP gauge detail, no Decals, nothing, just blank circles. Unfortunately, the Quinta panels didn’t come out until after I had closed up the fuselage and started paint, way too late. But I already started working on the second F-14D, and it is getting Quinta panels.
 



 
my helper

Hello all,
One of these days you WILL see a LSP project from me!  Not today...
In the meantime, here is a project I actually got finished.
It's the new tool Eagle kit from a somewhat crappy 1970s sci fi TV show.
The plot lines in those shows were silly...but the special effects were totally cool and I loved the "Eagle".
This new kit is a far cry from the old Fundimensions/MPC kit we had.  This one is accurate in shape and has modern standards of fit.
I needed an "off white" paint to match the studio model and I found a craft paint called "bisque" that fit the bill.
I watched several youtube videos and experimented a lot in order to learn how to airbrush craft acrylics.  It was a learning curve but I enjoyed it.
The tail cones are sprayed with alclad polished aluminum.  To get a brushed metal look, I first primed them with gloss Tamiya black.
Once hardened, I chucked into a drill and spun while holding steel wool against it.  This give the gloss black a texture that yielded the brushed metal appearance I wanted once alclad was sprayed.  Plus I saved a little money by not buying the metal engine bell set!
I did employ the window frames from a Paragrafix photoetch set.  These look great and fit well.
For clear coats I did some of it with Future but I still struggle with getting a consistent airbrush coat that is not "pebbly".
So I fell back to an old reliable standard...MicroScale gloss and flat.  I had some thirty year old bottles that still worked fine.
Here's a couple iPhone photos...

Thanks!  We all know that alclad hides nothing...especially scratches.  So, essentially, I took advantage of that fact!

Very nice Eagle there! I built the 1/48 version and it was really nice, so I imagine that the 72nd kit is just a scaled down version of the 48th kit, therefore equally as nice  
Those engine bells are really nicely done!!!

Hello all,
One of these days you WILL see a LSP project from me!  Not today...
In the meantime, here is a project I actually got finished.
It's the new tool Eagle kit from a somewhat crappy 1970s sci fi TV show.
The plot lines in those shows were silly...but the special effects were totally cool and I loved the "Eagle".
This new kit is a far cry from the old Fundimensions/MPC kit we had.  This one is accurate in shape and has modern standards of fit.
I needed an "off white" paint to match the studio model and I found a craft paint called "bisque" that fit the bill.
I watched several youtube videos and experimented a lot in order to learn how to airbrush craft acrylics.  It was a learning curve but I enjoyed it.
The tail cones are sprayed with alclad polished aluminum.  To get a brushed metal look, I first primed them with gloss Tamiya black.
Once hardened, I chucked into a drill and spun while holding steel wool against it.  This give the gloss black a texture that yielded the brushed metal appearance I wanted once alclad was sprayed.  Plus I saved a little money by not buying the metal engine bell set!
I did employ the window frames from a Paragrafix photoetch set.  These look great and fit well.
For clear coats I did some of it with Future but I still struggle with getting a consistent airbrush coat that is not "pebbly".
So I fell back to an old reliable standard...MicroScale gloss and flat.  I had some thirty year old bottles that still worked fine.
Here's a couple iPhone photos...

Awesome -  that texture looks great!

Hello all,
One of these days you WILL see a LSP project from me!  Not today...
In the meantime, here is a project I actually got finished.
It's the new tool Eagle kit from a somewhat crappy 1970s sci fi TV show.
The plot lines in those shows were silly...but the special effects were totally cool and I loved the "Eagle".
This new kit is a far cry from the old Fundimensions/MPC kit we had.  This one is accurate in shape and has modern standards of fit.
I needed an "off white" paint to match the studio model and I found a craft paint called "bisque" that fit the bill.
I watched several youtube videos and experimented a lot in order to learn how to airbrush craft acrylics.  It was a learning curve but I enjoyed it.
The tail cones are sprayed with alclad polished aluminum.  To get a brushed metal look, I first primed them with gloss Tamiya black.
Once hardened, I chucked into a drill and spun while holding steel wool against it.  This give the gloss black a texture that yielded the brushed metal appearance I wanted once alclad was sprayed.  Plus I saved a little money by not buying the metal engine bell set!
I did employ the window frames from a Paragrafix photoetch set.  These look great and fit well.
For clear coats I did some of it with Future but I still struggle with getting a consistent airbrush coat that is not "pebbly".
So I fell back to an old reliable standard...MicroScale gloss and flat.  I had some thirty year old bottles that still worked fine.
Here's a couple iPhone photos...

Hello all,
One of these days you WILL see a LSP project from me!  Not today...
In the meantime, here is a project I actually got finished.
It's the new tool Eagle kit from a somewhat crappy 1970s sci fi TV show.
The plot lines in those shows were silly...but the special effects were totally cool and I loved the "Eagle".
This new kit is a far cry from the old Fundimensions/MPC kit we had.  This one is accurate in shape and has modern standards of fit.
I needed an "off white" paint to match the studio model and I found a craft paint called "bisque" that fit the bill.
I watched several youtube videos and experimented a lot in order to learn how to airbrush craft acrylics.  It was a learning curve but I enjoyed it.
The tail cones are sprayed with alclad polished aluminum.  To get a brushed metal look, I first primed them with gloss Tamiya black.
Once hardened, I chucked into a drill and spun while holding steel wool against it.  This give the gloss black a texture that yielded the brushed metal appearance I wanted once alclad was sprayed.  Plus I saved a little money by not buying the metal engine bell set!
I did employ the window frames from a Paragrafix photoetch set.  These look great and fit well.
For clear coats I did some of it with Future but I still struggle with getting a consistent airbrush coat that is not "pebbly".
So I fell back to an old reliable standard...MicroScale gloss and flat.  I had some thirty year old bottles that still worked fine.
Here's a couple iPhone photos...

Hello all,
One of these days you WILL see a LSP project from me!  Not today...
In the meantime, here is a project I actually got finished.
It's the new tool Eagle kit from a somewhat crappy 1970s sci fi TV show.
The plot lines in those shows were silly...but the special effects were totally cool and I loved the "Eagle".
This new kit is a far cry from the old Fundimensions/MPC kit we had.  This one is accurate in shape and has modern standards of fit.
I needed an "off white" paint to match the studio model and I found a craft paint called "bisque" that fit the bill.
I watched several youtube videos and experimented a lot in order to learn how to airbrush craft acrylics.  It was a learning curve but I enjoyed it.
The tail cones are sprayed with alclad polished aluminum.  To get a brushed metal look, I first primed them with gloss Tamiya black.
Once hardened, I chucked into a drill and spun while holding steel wool against it.  This give the gloss black a texture that yielded the brushed metal appearance I wanted once alclad was sprayed.  Plus I saved a little money by not buying the metal engine bell set!
I did employ the window frames from a Paragrafix photoetch set.  These look great and fit well.
For clear coats I did some of it with Future but I still struggle with getting a consistent airbrush coat that is not "pebbly".
So I fell back to an old reliable standard...MicroScale gloss and flat.  I had some thirty year old bottles that still worked fine.
Here's a couple iPhone photos...

Beautiful! Can you post a pic or two of the engine nozzles? Your method for achieving a brushed-metal effect sounds intriguing.
 
Cheers,  Rockie

Hello all,
One of these days you WILL see a LSP project from me!  Not today...
In the meantime, here is a project I actually got finished.
It's the new tool Eagle kit from a somewhat crappy 1970s sci fi TV show.
The plot lines in those shows were silly...but the special effects were totally cool and I loved the "Eagle".
This new kit is a far cry from the old Fundimensions/MPC kit we had.  This one is accurate in shape and has modern standards of fit.
I needed an "off white" paint to match the studio model and I found a craft paint called "bisque" that fit the bill.
I watched several youtube videos and experimented a lot in order to learn how to airbrush craft acrylics.  It was a learning curve but I enjoyed it.
The tail cones are sprayed with alclad polished aluminum.  To get a brushed metal look, I first primed them with gloss Tamiya black.
Once hardened, I chucked into a drill and spun while holding steel wool against it.  This give the gloss black a texture that yielded the brushed metal appearance I wanted once alclad was sprayed.  Plus I saved a little money by not buying the metal engine bell set!
I did employ the window frames from a Paragrafix photoetch set.  These look great and fit well.
For clear coats I did some of it with Future but I still struggle with getting a consistent airbrush coat that is not "pebbly".
So I fell back to an old reliable standard...MicroScale gloss and flat.  I had some thirty year old bottles that still worked fine.
Here's a couple iPhone photos...

Hello all,
One of these days you WILL see a LSP project from me!  Not today...
In the meantime, here is a project I actually got finished.
It's the new tool Eagle kit from a somewhat crappy 1970s sci fi TV show.
The plot lines in those shows were silly...but the special effects were totally cool and I loved the "Eagle".
This new kit is a far cry from the old Fundimensions/MPC kit we had.  This one is accurate in shape and has modern standards of fit.
I needed an "off white" paint to match the studio model and I found a craft paint called "bisque" that fit the bill.
I watched several youtube videos and experimented a lot in order to learn how to airbrush craft acrylics.  It was a learning curve but I enjoyed it.
The tail cones are sprayed with alclad polished aluminum.  To get a brushed metal look, I first primed them with gloss Tamiya black.
Once hardened, I chucked into a drill and spun while holding steel wool against it.  This give the gloss black a texture that yielded the brushed metal appearance I wanted once alclad was sprayed.  Plus I saved a little money by not buying the metal engine bell set!
I did employ the window frames from a Paragrafix photoetch set.  These look great and fit well.
For clear coats I did some of it with Future but I still struggle with getting a consistent airbrush coat that is not "pebbly".
So I fell back to an old reliable standard...MicroScale gloss and flat.  I had some thirty year old bottles that still worked fine.
Here's a couple iPhone photos...

Hello all,
One of these days you WILL see a LSP project from me!  Not today...
In the meantime, here is a project I actually got finished.
It's the new tool Eagle kit from a somewhat crappy 1970s sci fi TV show.
The plot lines in those shows were silly...but the special effects were totally cool and I loved the "Eagle".
This new kit is a far cry from the old Fundimensions/MPC kit we had.  This one is accurate in shape and has modern standards of fit.
I needed an "off white" paint to match the studio model and I found a craft paint called "bisque" that fit the bill.
I watched several youtube videos and experimented a lot in order to learn how to airbrush craft acrylics.  It was a learning curve but I enjoyed it.
The tail cones are sprayed with alclad polished aluminum.  To get a brushed metal look, I first primed them with gloss Tamiya black.
Once hardened, I chucked into a drill and spun while holding steel wool against it.  This give the gloss black a texture that yielded the brushed metal appearance I wanted once alclad was sprayed.  Plus I saved a little money by not buying the metal engine bell set!
I did employ the window frames from a Paragrafix photoetch set.  These look great and fit well.
For clear coats I did some of it with Future but I still struggle with getting a consistent airbrush coat that is not "pebbly".
So I fell back to an old reliable standard...MicroScale gloss and flat.  I had some thirty year old bottles that still worked fine.
Here's a couple iPhone photos...

Sorry for minimal updates here.  I've been plowing away at finishing small parts like the MG bay covers and wheels/tires (the BarracudaCast resin tires are excellent).
 
One minor annoyance is that Tamiya provides masks only for the outside of the canopy.  For a LSP like this with lots of interior detail, you really need to paint the inside as well as it will be highly visible.  So when cutting out the canopy masks I cut all the way through the backing paper.

 
To make a template that could be used to cut a tape mask.

 
That I then cut in half to allow for the smaller area inside the curved canopy.

 
And used to mask the opposite side inside of the canopy.

 
The main sliding section of the canopy was easier to just mask inside freehand using Tamiya flexible tape, so that's what I did.  Both pieces fit flawlessly on the fuselage, of course.

 
I did some weathering/staining of the wheel bays with pastels, which are rapidly becoming my favorite way to do this.

 
It helps that my wife has gone nuts with pastel drawing over the past year (she's getting really good at it too) and so has literally more than a hundred different shades I can "borrow" for this purpose.  I used mostly brown and black here.
 
And some more tan and light gray to tone down the shiny/new look of the gun bays.

 
The trick with these is that they need to go down on a matte / semi-matte surface that has enough "tooth" to hold onto them, and you can't clearcoat over them afterwards or you will dramatically reduce the effect.  One other thing I like is that if you go overboard you can take them off (and least mostly off) with water and a soft toothbrush, so it's possible to dial back if you have to.  But I much prefer to build up slowly and not have to do that. 

Having glued up the wings and the fuselage (both just two-piece assemblies), we can check how much work there's going to be to get them to join nicely.  The underside lines up pretty well.

 
But there's a bit of a gap at the top of the wing root.
 

 
I'm thinking that it *might* be possible to thread a bolt through the top surface of the wing assembly (the top is continuous straight across inside the fuselage) and turn it against the bottom to create ever so slight an upward flex in that top surface and close the gap.  But if that doesn't work there's always putty.  It's not a ridiculous gap.
 
This is the whole airframe dry fit.  

Hello all,
One of these days you WILL see a LSP project from me!  Not today...
In the meantime, here is a project I actually got finished.
It's the new tool Eagle kit from a somewhat crappy 1970s sci fi TV show.
The plot lines in those shows were silly...but the special effects were totally cool and I loved the "Eagle".
This new kit is a far cry from the old Fundimensions/MPC kit we had.  This one is accurate in shape and has modern standards of fit.
I needed an "off white" paint to match the studio model and I found a craft paint called "bisque" that fit the bill.
I watched several youtube videos and experimented a lot in order to learn how to airbrush craft acrylics.  It was a learning curve but I enjoyed it.
The tail cones are sprayed with alclad polished aluminum.  To get a brushed metal look, I first primed them with gloss Tamiya black.
Once hardened, I chucked into a drill and spun while holding steel wool against it.  This give the gloss black a texture that yielded the brushed metal appearance I wanted once alclad was sprayed.  Plus I saved a little money by not buying the metal engine bell set!
I did employ the window frames from a Paragrafix photoetch set.  These look great and fit well.
For clear coats I did some of it with Future but I still struggle with getting a consistent airbrush coat that is not "pebbly".
So I fell back to an old reliable standard...MicroScale gloss and flat.  I had some thirty year old bottles that still worked fine.
Here's a couple iPhone photos...