Italeri CF-104 Starfighter "Kicked up a Notch": KLP Publishing eBook now Available!

[Hemi]

Im with you Chuck. Im on the fence. Maybe these pics will hlep.BTW they show how how well your rivets look like the the real thing.

[allthumbs]

This looks so, so nice. Thanks for the detailed tutorials. I’m taking careful notes as there’s a NMF Zipper project near the top of my “want to build” list.

 

Rich

[MikeA]

A real beauty! Those rivets are possibly the outstanding (in the right light!) feature and seam to go a long way to reproducing what shows on photos of the actual airframes. The weathering is also great, but I think more than anything it shows the limitation of paint. Any finish is a compromise and attempting to show the metal grain and scuff marks with paint on a natural metal finish is possibly akin to the holy grail. I certainly wouldn't do more or add any emphasis to panel lines which, on this kit at least, its all about trying to hide them or at least have them consistent.

 

Awesome job and certainly one to take notes from. Still cant quite believe how those rivets turned out.

 

Cheers,

[bdthoresen]

Chuck-

 

I think the dry brushing looks perfect for the scale. Anymore and I think it might be overdone. The fact it is light dependent is awesome. But I would put a darker metallic wash in all of the recessed fasteners, and that should take it to the next level....but it looks fantastic so far!

 

THOR    

[titan]

I'll go against the trend and say that while I think the finish looks fine I do think you can find something that looks more authentic. 

 

One possibility might be some rough buffing with a dremel tool.  The buffing wheel may be able to give you the grain patterns you're after.  It's a thought to try on some scrap maybe.

[chuck540z3]

15 minutes ago, titan said:

I'll go against the trend and say that while I think the finish looks fine I do think you can find something that looks more authentic. 

 

One possibility might be some rough buffing with a dremel tool.  The buffing wheel may be able to give you the grain patterns you're after.  It's a thought to try on some scrap maybe.

 

Thanks, but at this stage I would be buffing X-22 clear coat which will do nothing but maybe dull the finish.  A little deeper, and I'd be buffing Alclad Chrome that is so thin, it comes off with just my fingers, so I'll pass on that.  Maybe the look below is a bit better?

 

 

Well I thought about the weathering some more (all of 8 hours!) and decided the metallic finish was never going to get scratches after all, but it needed a bit more of something.  Not much, but something, when it dawned on me that I should be using a darker metallic wash than the light aluminum ones I had tried before.  Here is the line-up I have used before from TrueEarth.com, with the "Warm" one on the left used on my Tempest build.  These washes are water based and come off with water on a damp rag, but be careful if you don't have an acrylic clear coat on the paint, because they sometimes stick like snot to an oven door and no amount of rubbing will take them off.  The key is to just do very small areas at a time and not let the wash sit for more than 30-45 seconds or so before you wipe it off.  If you do get an area that won't rub off, use a little paint solvent on a rag- hence the need for a clear coat if you use enamels or lacquers- and it will come off easily.

 

 

As advertised, these washes give off a metallic sheen that blends with the paint underneath and are better for this application than just a regular wash that will jump into panel lines I didn't want to emphasize. I chose the darkest one on the far right, because the lighter ones didn't do much for obvious reasons and real metal always has areas that look darker than others, depending on the lighting and the reflections.  My application was specific to recessed detail and open panel areas, trying not to get the dark wash into panel lines until the wash was wiped off.  After trying the wash on a small test area, I really liked the results and ultimately did the entire top surface and the sides.

 

The bad news is that this change doesn't photograph very well at all, and you would be hard pressed from these pics to see much difference from the earlier pics from yesterday, mostly because the changes are subtle, but to my naked eye, significantly better.  The finish looks a lot more like real metal now with darkish highlights all over the place that change with lighting, more or less like real metal does.

 

Anyway, a few more pics and sorry for so many, because I have tried to show just about every angle under various lighting conditions.  Consider the metallic weathering DONE!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cheers,

Chuck

Edited March 18, 2021 by chuck540z3

[LSP_Kevin]

The difference is noticeable to me, Chuck, and I think it looks much closer to the effect you were after now. Well done!

 

Kev

[dodgem37]

They add depth.  Good stuff.  Good show.

 

Sincerely,

Mark

[Derek B]

Very subtle and nicely done Chuck - success! (well done and thanks).

 

Derek

[Hawkwrench]

IMO, very nicely done Chuck!

But then again, every kicked up a notch model has turned out beautiful!!!

How about giving the Kitty Hawk H-60 a kicked up notch???

Between Pete and you, I'd be ecstatic watching 2 master modelers crank out 2 awesome helos!!!

 

Tim

[Marcel111]

I think it looks excellent! Its good to be subtle, too much would distract from the perfection.

 

Marcel

[chuck540z3]

Thanks Guys!  Checking out the metallic finish again this morning, I'm pretty happy with the results which as Marcel pointed out, are subtle, but it gives the finish that little extra "Oomph" I was looking for. 

 

While I always appreciate all of your comments and compliments, I got the very best one from my wife last night.  Like most modeling spouses, my wife sort of just puts up with my hobby and my laser focus on it, which sometimes can be all consuming to the detriment of more important things in life.  Guilty as charged.  Anyway, when she was in my work area looking at this model she commented, "I think this is the best model you've ever made.  I really like the metal.", which is very cool since it's still far from finished.  To me it's not my best model by a long shot, mostly because the wide kit panel lines hold it back, but I think it will look killer when I get all the control surfaces, landing gear, canopy and wingtip tanks attached. Fingers crossed!

 

Cheers,

Chuck

[Marine104]

I love everything you have done there, the difference in realism imho is huge between this finish and a solid block of Alclad colour. We 'weather' normal camo paint so for me the same ideas should apply to bring scale realism. Looking at real NMF F-104 pics, I don't think the grain is very obvious in most photos on the panels compared to other types such as a NMF Mirage III, so not going all out and adding the more prominent scratches all over is the best call. Top work. 

 

David

Edited March 18, 2021 by Marine104

[chuck540z3]

38 minutes ago, Marine104 said:

I love everything you have done there, the difference in realism imho is huge between this finish and a solid block of Alclad colour. We 'weather' normal camo paint so for me the same ideas should apply to bring scale realism. Looking at real NMF F-104 pics, I don't think the grain is very obvious in most photos on the panels compared to other types such as a NMF Mirage III, so not going all out and adding the more prominent scratches all over is the best call. Top work. 

 

David

 

Thanks David!

 

For those who may be interested, below is the Prime Portal website of images by Luc Colin that I used the most for this build.  While not a CF-104 but a F-104G, it shares many of the same characteristics of the Canadian version, although likely much more weathered than it would have been circa 1965 or so.  This is the main reference I used for rivet placement and where the dark wash idea came from, because this bird is quite weathered and dark overall.

 

Cheers,

Chuck

 

Prime Portal Luc Colin Photos of F-104G

[Alex]

1 hour ago, chuck540z3 said:

Anyway, when she was in my work area looking at this model she commented, "I think this is the best model you've ever made.  I really like the metal.",

 

 

 

I knew I was finally starting to gain some skill at modeling when my wife, who knows nothing about either models or airplanes (she's a virologist), commented without prompting: "It looks just like the real one, but small..."   You have to imagine it with the Russian accent to get the full effect.