Kit Bash Stinger

[Dandiego]

Looking good Chris. Nicely  done.

 

Dan

[themongoose]

I’m just hanging out having a cold one in the sand 

[themongoose]

Hit a milestone today, the cockpit is done and ready for a final check. Let me know if you see something I should correct before I seal it up and get ready to primer the whole plane. I'm very happy I didn't launch one piece into the stratosphere! I masked the canopy while I was waiting on paint to dry. Wish I hadn't been so productive now that I had a chance to borrow my son's camera with the wide angle lens or I could have gotten some shots with it on too. The pilot is Vallejo's Green Grey which seems to be the match to sage green. I lightened the color with white and yellow for a few different tones. I darkened it with black and didn't like it at all, seemed to come out a deep grey instead of a green tone. I'm debating if a black wash would make it look any better. Let me know your thoughts. 

[themongoose]

Started my first black basing trials tonight! The MCW paint is thinned 50/50 with gunze leveling thinner. One of the guys at our local club suggested this to get a smoother finish and to be able to control how much paint is going down. One of my best lessons yet has come from this experience. Probably the first time I’ve been able to get a fine line and this method is helping me learn how to put the paint down n layers rather than an overall spray that tends to be too thick. Below is just the mottle coat. Will do more over the weekend following some more practice before i spray a cover coat and some other shades. 1st I’ve got to get the whole thing together tho lol

[Dragon]

Looks good Chris! I've been wanting to give black basing a try myself, so I'll be watching how you do it. I have a build for the Multi-Engine GB I'll be attempting it on.

 

Mike

[themongoose]

Thanks Dragon. Stay tuned this weekend, should be mottling by tonight for sure.

 

So I took a day off work for this. Originally this was supposed to be for a Marine tribute at our local IPMS club meeting in September. Since the water dripping into the family room from the upstairs bathroom took over my late summer lol, it has become a December meeting goal...So I took a day off work for this because it still felt too far from done to make the meeting on the 17th. 

Here is the overall state of things today (did some weapons too but no pics of those till they're done).

Does anyone have experience with how the filler looks once you start putting color on the aircraft? The black primer shows it way too well. When I use grey primer it seems to blend in pretty good. Will end up testing things out on the stabilator before I do the main plane so any advice ahead of time would be great.

[themongoose]

One thing I can conclude, I must do a better job blending in the filler. Jury's out on how I'm doing at black basing. Let me know what you think good or bad? Some of my mixed opinion is that the paint is really glossy after applying the top coat with 70% thinner and it shows everything. The thinned coat is hard to lay down because it's hard to see the paint. Took awhile to find the right reflection and set up the airbrush different than for the mottle coat.

1st off I'll show two stabilators side by side. On the left are 3 coats, primary color and a lightened mix and darkened mix. I used white and black to change the shades. 

 

Here's some progress pics. This 1st one is the set with just the base color on them.

Here they are with all 3 coats prior to doing the thinned cover coat with the base color.

And whenever I had some paint still in the cup I threw it on the hornet :-)

[themongoose]

It’s a model fest weekend!!

heres the gark ghost grey and lighter dark ghost grey mottle coat. After the kids christmas carol concert tonight the darker dark ghost grey will go on mist likely [:P]

I also redid the stabilators. Used bondo glazing putty instead of perfect plastic putty.it looks much better. Pics later once i get them repainted.

 

[Anthony in NZ]

I am following your painting progress with great interest.  I love this technique and am about to use it on my RNZAF Skyhawk centerline fuel tank soon.  Personally I think you are doing a great job so far!  Looks just like Doogs video's.

 

Keep up the great work my friend!

 

Cheers Anthony

[themongoose]

Who hoo thanks for the encouragement Anthony! 

 

This morning the bottom mottling is all done. Starting with th small parts was definitely the wayto go. If for no other reason this method is great for impoving air brush skills. Recognizng when it needs cleaned out and when my strokes are getting sloppy, like going too fast. So heres where I’m at plus a shot of all the different mixes and a bonus, had a few pieces of cork board left from my daughters room decorating request that were put to good use.

[themongoose]

It's been a completely uninterrupted day in the paint booth  Another 2 hours gone and the bottom is done in light ghost grey. The tails were supposed to be LGG too which I almost missed. Glad Dave Roof has the graphics with his decals for sure as I kept that sheet right next to me all day.

 

Here's something I really like about this system...I think I said that a few posts up too haha. These 3 pics are for a repair I did. Once I had the mottle coat finished I noticed some poor filler work, yeah I know go figure lol. In order of progression you can see how the repair goes and prior to the top coat it's almost unnoticeable.

 

I still need more work on my sanding and filling but it's getting better.

[themongoose]

Calling it a day. Time for a beer and some nfl football. I see Hornets over Hanoi is updated so maybe I’ll read a few build threads first...

Here she is with a gloss coat on her, ready for weathering. The last one is a collage of all the small parts i did as well.

the mottling really shows up under the gloss clear. Assuming it will fade when the matt clear goes on. Anyone with experience with this that could confirm how it looks with matt clear?

[Out2gtcha]

Nice!

 

[themongoose]

Looking like i may get this done for the local club meeting! Finished the major weathering under the fuselage tonight. I decided on oil dot filtering to match the brown tones seen in photos of desert storm Hornets, except my oil dots are actually acrylic dots as I’m using water based artist paints. Here’s a few transition shots.

 

after pulling the dots down i dabbed at the edges to try and soften them. I did this in 2 layers at this stage. Turning out kinda bright. In hindsight a dull coat rather than gloss may have helped this. Wetting the surface before putting down the dots wasn’t effective at dulling the colors because it just smeared the paint around and wouldn’t stay on the surface. 

 

so I seald it with dullcoat and then sprayed a mist of thinned light ghost gray at a high angle across the surface. What do you think, still too dark? Would blending in some dark wash along the edges and across the surface bring it together or to much do you think?

 

[themongoose]

Just one pic tonight but it represents about 10hrs of work. Always surprising how much time passes when you sit down and do decals! Flaps are on and weathered, gun burn marks on, exhaust painted but not on yet, landing gear doors ready to go on, and pylons ready to go on (all sitting on left side of the booth).

 

tomorrow I’ll finish up decals and put a matt coat on it. My pilot decal fell apart. Not sure if i want to put another name on it or not yet. I may put out a call on the trader board first. Then Saturday it’s all weapons day! My sons going to start the base for me and then Sunday it’s time to travel with it. Going to be a busy few days for sure. Comments and critiques welcome. I still have some time for changes built in.