ClumsyDude

Great work on the checks - I'd be sweating something like that for weeks ahead of the decals going on, especially with compound curves like that. Well done. Jim

Looks terrific under paint, Harrison - really convincing. Cheers Jim

THIS is how it's done ... been wondering for a while where this build was at, glad to see you're still working on it! Jim

Yep, love the look of the completed machine guns. Great work!

Thanks Maru! I am really happy with how it's looking so far ...

Awesome to see it with the props on - keep going! Jim

You call that rough? Better not show me your smooth work, I'll have to give the game away! Awesome work, will look amazing under paint. Cheers Jim

Then it was on to filling up the cockpit. It's a launch dio, so I wanted the pilot figures looking as realistic as I could get them. This was an issue as I've never done much with figures before. Much research into techniques was needed before I got going! I used the figures from the Hasegawa deck crew set. They fit together well, and I used a technique I saw on this site, running the edge of a no.11 blade around the edge of the clothing detail to sharpen it. After primer, I sprayed base colours for clothing, and then (with the airbrush pointing up at the figure from below) sprayed a darkened mix for shadow. After, with the airbrush pointing down at the figure from above, I sprayed a lighter mix of the base colour. It's a subtle effect in real life, and almost lost in the photos: After that I added washes and decals. The stars on the helmet are custom decals from Ad Astra masks (from whom I got the masks that I used for the rest of the plane); the stripes are sliced off a spare decal sheet. And some silver to detail the buckles Also at this point I noticed I'd broken off the face curtain handles on the ejection seats. Much swearing ensued; after it subsided I made a jig and duplicated them with copper wire. Next up - the cockpit all together!

Ok, so the next step was getting the forward fuse together and installing the cockpit. The left side of the Hasegawa forward fuselage has a cheesy representation of the gun, probably so that they can render different gun gas vents for different models of Tomcat. These fit very poorly, and plenty of filling and sanding is required in order to get them looking ok. I also thinned down the gun muzzle quite a bit as it looks really chunky out of the box. Next up, I glued the forward fuse together and attached it to the rear. Plenty of styrene and CA reinforcement! I added some lead foil to the canopy coamings to try to simulate a fabric effect (out of the box, Hasegawa gives you a dodgy crosshatch pattern which looks terrible to my eye). According to the Aires set, the forward coaming has a sort of extra patch on top which I tried to duplicate. Hard to see in these photos but will be clearer in later ones.

Awesome work on the exhausts Jean-Luc! Jim

That's some brilliant paintwork on the wings. Very convincing. Jim

Awesome patience & professionalism - there is plenty of really good problem solving going into this, well done! Really enjoying seeing it come together, one day I'd love to tackle one of these 21CT kits. If I ever have the space ... Cheers Jim

Awesome seat belts Mal ... I've never been able to get them looking like that, but then I've never tried the fabric ones either. What glue do you use to attach them, is it CA? Jim

Looks awesome - great leather effect on the seat, and I like the fabric behind the seat. Watching with interest! Jim

Kev, great work getting it assembled. Looks terrific, good luck with the weld beads. Jim

Yep, I'm lost for words ... just inspirational. Jim

Watching this one!!

Thanks Chris, appreciate it. Agree with you on the launch dio - when I first got back into the hobby (about seven years ago), I found Masa Narita's 1/32 diorama and said to myself, "I have got to do one of those." I put off having a go for a further four years, while I got my skills up to the level that I felt I needed to do it justice ... I suspect that anyone who was a teenager when Top Gun came out has a similar fixation! Cheers Jim

Thanks Oliver!

Next up I spent a bunch of time on subassemblies. Won't spend a lot of time going over what I did except for a few items. Intakes were of course a nightmare. Finally got them smooth on the inside - don't want to think how long it took - more applications of putty, primer and sandpaper than I care to think about! Then there was the tiny intake on top of the port vertical tail. All Hasegawa gives you is a notch - pretty ugly and in need of modification. My descriptive skills are lousy and photos are out of focus, but let's see how we go. W First, I cut out a chunk of the fairing forward of the notch. This allowed me to get a drill in there at a downward angle. Having drilled a hole at the right size, I inserted some evergreen rod the same size as the hole - but with the top half filed down a little to leave a crescent shaped gap. Sorry about the lousy photos: Then sanded back the rod to agree with the rest of the fairing, applied putty and off we go. Unfortunately didn't get pics in progress, but here's a look at the finished article: Then I did some work on the navigation lights. The kit lights were, in a word, hopeless - didn't fit at all. So I superglued some shiny bare metal foil into the gap, then glued some clear sprue on top and sanded to shape. The only other thing I tried to do at this stage was get some texture on the wing sweep bags, so they'd look a bit like leather. I sanded down the styrene bags, and glued thick lead foil over the top. I then scored the foil with coarse sandpaper to try to create a grain. See below: Unfortunately it looked a bit terrible so I sanded it back to more or less flat. More to come next time!

I don't want to know how long it took you to generate a 3D render of something as complex as that canopy seal - it looks terrific, the kind of detail that will make the model look really awesome. Riveting build! Cheers Jim

Engine looks great, really starting to come to life. I'm amazed how fast everyone works on here, getting to this point of a model as complex as the Airfix typhoon would take me about a year! Cheers Jim

Ok, I have to ask, how do you do surgery on a pre-painted PE part without taking the colour off? I've never even dreamed about it, I'd be too scared of screwing up an expensive PE set! Great work as always. Jim

Just, wow ... Jim

Dan, this is terrific work! The cockpit looks great, and the scratch work is nothing less than jaw dropping - I don't begin to have the confidence to step outside injection moulding land, but one day I'd love to tackle a project like this! Cheers Jim