Skydancer

Today I airbrushed the new made flap section

Just for my interest, I wanted to see how it looks like complete... This is something I need to do, to keep up my motivation. Always good to see how it looks like and adding with phantasy what it will become. I‘m happy with the flaps now and I think the work behind was worth it. I‘m close to the finish line, some weathering to do, but no more „big projects“ on it. (Except the ejector seats for the D, but I‘ll find a solution for sure)

Update to the flaps... Let`s call it "micromanagement", because sanding those pieces into shape is very annoying Now they will be flatened out with putty and again... sanding paper After this is done, paintjob will follow. Important... As you can see, the first stiffener outside the wing, doesn`t fit the mount on the flap. This is caused through the precision of the model. While it fits on the top of the wing, it wont on the underside. So I decided, that it is more important it will fit on the top of the wing. All other stiffeners fit perfectly on both sides.

Update...

(First test mount of the self made flaps on the 1/18 JSI F-14A to F-14D VF-2 Bounty Hunters NE106 conversion. Not finished weathering yet on the flaps.

Some update to the self made flaps... base painting, without decals and without weathering.

Some updates on the flaps... WIP

The painting and weathering steps till yet: 1. Ground painting the sanded Tomcat white 2. Airbrushing the engravings dark gray 3. Airbrushing the surface plates with brown/gray (in a crazy looking pattern) 4. Airbrushing the original Navy FS colors 5. Weathering with Vallejo light gray (engravings) 6. Sealing with Cerakote clear paint / polishing down 7. Weathering with Vallejo white (lightens up the model a bit, looks like the paint is burned out by sun) 8. Sealing with Cerakote clear paint / polishing down 9. Weathering with Modelmaster color 10. Sealing with Cerakote clear paint / polishing down 11. Weathering with Vallejo oily brown 12. Weathering with with Vallejo dark gray and light gray (dirt) upcoming: 13. Weathering with Vallejo (Footsteps and Handprints) 14. Weathering with oil colors wind wished dirt 15. Sealing with Cerakote clear paint / polishing down 16. Placing decals 17. Sealing with Cerakote clear paint / polishing down 18. Maybe weathering some decals to the level if necessary 19. Sealing with Cerakote clear paint / dusting matte / polishing to the semi gloss level I need I know, this is much clear coating, but due to the quality of Cerakote clear paint, this is no problem - the sealing is very very thin and very very hard. This is something I especially do, because the Cerakote paint is ceramic based and oil resistant. This means the weathering steps work a bit different. If once it is sealed, no liquid will take the clear coat away.

Update... Another weathering layer... more will follow... Masking with Humbrol Maskol... After this, the borders have been painted with Vallejo wash "light gray" and the mask has been removed. After this, the wash color has been smudged down, to blur and fade out the hard contures. Result for last night: Effect works for me, because if you are a bit away from the model, it blurs the weathering effects and they don`t jump into your eye. I don`t like to much effect, so it shall only work if you are close to the kit.

Some update to my built... I cut out the flaps and overworked this section, to show them in "out" position. I also created copies of the LANTIRN and bomb racks.

Some updates The fins are painted and the Antenna is attached on the right outside fin. Also I overworked the bottom of the cat with a thin airbrush coloring. and I decided to work with stencils for the bigger parts, I plotted out instead of decals.

Redesigned Tomcat Airbags. Formed with regular car putty, sanded over hours, painted 3 times with a sponge and sanded down the color again and again to get this effect. Washed with Vallejo dark gray and finished with Tamiya weathering master soot (Dont look at the rest of the bird, its full of sanding dust)

Well, the stencil I made for positioning the dirt was wrong, so I am correcting it yet. Also the Airbags needed correction. At first I tried the easy way with milliput putty, but this was to soft and hardened out bad. So I also removed the formed airbags to do it again with industrial car putty. So all you saw before was for dump. Keeping you up to date with the new way At the moment I stoped sanding the airbags after 6 hours doing this job... around 6 more to go tomorrow, but it is Sunday

Some updates... I formed the airbags and started with the weathering of the wings After this step, the oiled and dirty parts of the wing will be sanded just a bit. After this, a clear coat will come over it and the job will be done again with a darker color to get the right effect.

In matter of fact, that I can`t print white decals (Laserprinter) I decided to paint the national markings on the top of the wing. I used my plotter to cut the foil out. The result is good Also you can see other parts I made the last days. One of the nozzles, the GBU-12 bombs close to finish and some of the decals and stencils I made.