Stealth fighters are really neat aircraft and your model looks very clean and well done. I sincerely hope you finish in time and wish you much luck in that endeavor!
For what it is worth, I am also chasing the rabbit with my F-15E. I will need to spray paint two or even three times a day to make it, but it remains possible.
I wouldn’t say no to an extension. Last few weekends have been really busy. That and my kitchen accident has meant I haven’t done much on the Lily for a while.
Getting close to finish line. decals on for the most part. saving the guest of honor for the last decal. i found that the MMR probably stood for the pilots girlfriends initials. I hope his girl looked like the one painted on the side of his B25- lucky guy!!
then i had an idea. i still need to install the Norden site, the top bombardier canopy is not glued in place yet, and it was common practice to remove or cover the site in-between missions. the photo i seen of the front of the plane clearly shows a tarp covering the bomb site so i dipped a piece of brown napkin in a mix of white glue and water and draped it over the site and left to dry overnight.
I still plan to finish on time. However, if extending the deadline a week or two will result in a two or three more completions, it very probably serves the greater good. This campaign currently lasts 9 months so such an extension would not push the duration over a year. Deadlines need to matter but good leaders will bend a rule when it makes sense.
The model would benefit from another round or two of filling and sanding but the gain would be very small. Therefore, the base coat will go on in about 12 hours, followed by lots of masking and panel painting.
In an effort to save time, I decided to change course and do all the panel shading and streaking under the base coat. This was my first attempt to panel shade and it took a few hours. I do not have the airbrush control, endurance, or eyesight to perfectly execute the technique but all things considered, I think it turned out pretty okay.
I will add streaks and the base coat later today. Having never done this before, I am very curious to see the result.
Great to see everyones builds coming along nicely. The B-25 looks fantastic!
Did a few more of the little jobs on the Lily this weekend. I also polished up the transparencies and they’re looking a lot better than they did. I used an automotive scratch remover paste first, then a final polish with toothpaste. The cockpit and rear gunners canopy came out really nice, but the nose transparency is still a little murky. I suspect this is more to do with the thicker plastic on this part and age discolouration. It will just have to do.
I am calling this one done. It is the ukrainian clover type camo. The one used before the grey pixel versions.
It is the old 1/48 KP SU-25 with an aftermarket cockpit and new gun muzzle. Quite a nice kit although the detail level is clearly behind todays standards.
After painting the base coat on the F-15E last night, I realized the nose cone, gear wells, and engine panels still needed painting. That led to a gigantic masking exercise this morning.
This all resulted from my lack of experience. In the future, I will paint things in a very different order and save myself a bunch of time and Tamiya Tape.
The nose cone color ended up a bit too light. It was difficult to determine which panels should remain in bare metal so I gave it my best guess. I will let this dry for another hour or two, then give it a gloss coat and put on the decals.