dodgem37 Posted February 6, 2021 Share Posted February 6, 2021 I love the horizontal line-work and the repetitive definition of those buullets. The metallic coating is so smooth. That is how I wish the bullets in the gun bays I did had turned out. Sincerely, Mark Sincerely, Mark Gazzas, Dpgsbody55, Alex and 1 other 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dennismcc Posted February 6, 2021 Share Posted February 6, 2021 Astonishingly great work going on here. Chers Dennis Alex 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Posted February 6, 2021 Author Share Posted February 6, 2021 1 hour ago, dodgem37 said: I love the horizontal line-work and the repetitive definition of those bullets. The metallic coating is so smooth. That is how I wish the bullets in the gun bays I did had turned out. 1 hour ago, dennismcc said: Astonishingly great work going on here. Chers Dennis Thanks guys! I'm glad you like it. For the record, what I did on the ammo belts/trays was: 1. Airbrush with Mr. Surfacer Black 1500 2. Airbrush over that with MRP Zinc Chromate 3. Brush paint the shell casings with Testors Model Master Brass enamel (I rarely use enamel paints, but for hand-detailing tiny things that need a small amount of paint to be opaque I think they are the best option) 4. Brush paint the bullets with Testors Copper enamel 5. Repeat step 3 because the brass was not opaque enough. At this point the bullets were shiny but I had a number of places where metallic paint had run down onto the floor of the ammo tray. So 6. Make a wash of water, Windex, and a couple drops of Vallejo Dark Olive Green acrylic, and carefully wick this down into each of the gaps between bullets. When this dried it restored the green color and added a bit of darker shadow. 7. Mask the central dark grey metal links of the ammo belt with tape and airbrush on that final color. A bit involved, but it wound up looking OK, and I felt it was important given that when open the gun bays are a strong focal point for the model. Landrotten Highlander, dennismcc, Dpgsbody55 and 4 others 5 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gazzas Posted February 6, 2021 Share Posted February 6, 2021 Alex 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Posted February 8, 2021 Author Share Posted February 8, 2021 (edited) 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. Edited February 8, 2021 by Alex Landrotten Highlander, KUROK, LSP_Kevin and 3 others 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Posted February 8, 2021 Author Share Posted February 8, 2021 This kit is engineered so I can really take advantage of my preference to make and finish, including paint, as many separate sub-parts of the model as possible, bringing them all together only at the very end of the process. Obviously perfect fits are required for this to apply to sections of the fuselage like on this kit. Here's a bin with just some (not all) of the finished bits waiting to eventually be added in. Prop is well underway too. Love the HGW transfers. Needs a flat coat and the spinner needs to be painted and - that latter will finally force me to choose which FS/FG I'm actually doing here. BradG, denders, MikeMaben and 4 others 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Panzerwomble Posted February 8, 2021 Share Posted February 8, 2021 (edited) wowsers -that is some amazingly precise work . +1 on the gun bays they are superb. Edited February 8, 2021 by Panzerwomble Alex 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Troy Molitor Posted February 8, 2021 Share Posted February 8, 2021 Holy smokes that looks nice! Alex 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Posted February 9, 2021 Author Share Posted February 9, 2021 2 hours ago, Panzerwomble said: wowsers -that is some amazingly precise work . +1 on the gun bays they are superb. 2 hours ago, Troy Molitor said: Holy smokes that looks nice! Thanks! I'm definitely happy with how it's going so far. Still a bit nervous about committing to doing that big NMF job on the wings/fuselage. I'm running out of other things that need doing though, so it's make or break time soon... Panzerwomble 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LSP_Kevin Posted February 9, 2021 Share Posted February 9, 2021 Very nice work, Alex! I don't want to bring you down, however, but I can see evidence of a visible seem on the front part of the fuselage intake assembly: Kev Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Posted February 9, 2021 Author Share Posted February 9, 2021 32 minutes ago, LSP_Kevin said: Very nice work, Alex! I don't want to bring you down, however, but I can see evidence of a visible seem on the front part of the fuselage intake assembly: Kev Yeah, I can see it too - it seems there’s always something that escapes my attention until I take a picture of it. Should not be too difficult to eliminate though. LSP_Kevin 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mpk Posted February 9, 2021 Share Posted February 9, 2021 Great stuff. This will be one beautiful mustang. Alex 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
acarothers896 Posted February 10, 2021 Share Posted February 10, 2021 Nice work, Alex. Coming along nicely. What paints and shades did you use on the flaps? I like the difference between the two shades. Andy Carothers IwoJimaModels.com https://iwojimamodels.com Alex 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Posted February 11, 2021 Author Share Posted February 11, 2021 5 hours ago, acarothers896 said: Nice work, Alex. Coming along nicely. What paints and shades did you use on the flaps? I like the difference between the two shades. Andy Carothers IwoJimaModels.com https://iwojimamodels.com On the horizontal stabilizers I used Alclad Aluminum (101) on the main part and Duraluminum (102) on the leading edges. Both sprayed over gloss black. The main flaps and ailerons are Aluminum over gloss black too. For the main gear legs, inside of main gear doors, and drop tanks I wanted a flatter / more oxidized look so I did a 50-50 mix of White Aluminum (106) and Semi-Matte Aluminum (116) over flat black. I am still fooling around with what I want to use on the wings to get the aluminum lacquer look (they need to took subtly different than the bare-metal fuselage). For the canopy frames I did a 50-50 mix of Aluminum and Duraluminum over glass black. Hope that's helpful. mpk 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Posted February 11, 2021 Author Share Posted February 11, 2021 So I've finally committed to the paint scheme for this thing. I'll be doing the black and yellow of the 47th FS. With that decided I could finish painting the spinner. Another view A main gear leg and wheel with BarracudaCast resin tire Those need some weathering with acrylic wash and pastels before being assembled along with the gear doors. A drop tank I got the darn red circle a little off center, dang it. I'm having to mix and match the HGW transfers and the kit decals a bit. The HGW set corresponds to an earlier Tamiya release for ETO Mustangs, so it has only markings for 75-gal drop tanks. The white placards above are decals from the kit specific to the 130-gal tanks that were used on Iwo Jima, while the rest are HGW. Also the print quality on the HGW transfers was pretty poor for the (admittedly tiny) jack position stencils for the landing gear legs, so I ended up using the decals instead. I have now officially run out of things I can work on to defer tackling joining the wings to the fuselage and then the paint job for them. This is dry-fit below; it's pretty clean but there's some slight resistance to seating all the way on the starboard side. I need to sort out what that is and then I can glue em up. Landrotten Highlander, Wackyracer, BradG and 5 others 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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