Melbourne cup day build: F14K

[DaFROG]

here's the build thread.
having just recieved a sheet of hello kitty decals off ebay i decided to put them to good use.

this if an F14K of the bonjour chat escadrille. The victim this time is a dragon F14A which has nice engraved lines and some sharp detail but old molds i think ther is some flash and some awkward gaps (though i got round some of these by shortening the intakes). the cockpit comes wiht molded in blobs (i mean pilots) though they don't look anything like F14 pilots they do a reasonable impression of the SR71 and U2 "space suits" hence the colour.

[DaFROG]

what better colour to christen my new spray booth (yes it has delusions of grandeur) than fuchsia?

I'm off to a BBQ now but there's not a heap left to do the gears, and burner cans are done and ready to go on. might add some missiles and external tanks but they will not be pink

[puddingwrestler]

Huzzah! All hail the glorious Bonjour Chat Escadrille!

[DaFROG]

here it is (not quite finished, requires dullcote but that requires daylight)


slight problem with fit of the canopy however a little judiciously applied supa glue and sanding sorted it (and no canopy fogging)


stopped by an asian grocery on the way home today and just had to buy this should make a good base for the model (grape flavor actually tastes good)





might enter it in the pink contest as well.

[Tophe]

I love your pink 2-tone "camouflage" (to hide among sugar sweets?)

But most of all, I do love your Hello Kitty roundels . Yes, this makes me consider putting back roundels on my new models, the first ones for years... Is this commercially available decals? (Where to get them?) Or just Web files printed on paper then cut and glued? Anyway, I could do this, thanks A LOT for the idea!

[buzzbomb]

Yeah that works.. in a bizarrely anime way.

[Joe C-P]

OOG. 
That's just, um, er...

I'm simply not certain what to say. 

[ChernayaAkula]

And very fitting since this year marks both the 35th anniversary of Hello Kitty and the 35th anniversary of the Tomcat's first cruise!  Howzat for a coinkydink?

[puddingwrestler]

I found DF the decals actually; they are from Crazy Modeller, and I found them on eBay by accident. The best place and way to find Hello Kitty markings. They are for cars I think.

[DaFROG]

Tophe: decals are 1/24 new beetle car ones i scored off e-bay (there is a pic in the Melbourne cup day  thread) there are plenty more of the little kittys and some larger ones including Daniel (Daniel is kittys boyfriend, an asian girl i went to uni with made her boyfriend take daniel as his english name. I might end up sending her the model she's a bit of a hello kitty nut ). The web address on the decal sheet does not work. There are all sorts of cutsey character graphics on real vehicles type kits available on HLJ.com
The camo is actually 3 tone (fuscia and orangeish-red on the top and fuschia and light pink on the bottom) but my camera has a hard time dealing with all the pink, the fuchsia is also gloss which didn't help.

ChernayaAkula: consider this my tribute to both these august institutions. Not sure how well it might go down with tomcat fanboys but should fare beter with tomcat fan girls. . NOte als that kitty is wearing a sailor suit on the candy tin (obviously the uniform of the bonjour chat escadrille of the aeronavale)

Apart from the paint there is some structural whifery, mostly aimed at making it easier to build. the intakes are cut short and the LERX/mandibles smoothed out. the min gear doors are still in one piece they should be cut into two pieces but i only found out after spraying them, now that i check the instructions (hard to avoid as they are printed on the box) i realize the nose gear door is whiffed as well . there are also two round sensor windows under the nose where the hastily applied putty sank into the mounting point for some silly looking thing i left off .

[Brian da Basher]

A Hello Kitty Tomcat? Brilliant!!!

Brian da Bashder

[DaFROG]

one last pic, now with dulcote and panel lines. It's not a wash i used a "gundam marker" which is basically a fine felt tip pen except they come in colours, grey in this case. the gundam marker seemed to run a little bit in the dulcote but it doesn't look to bad from half a meter away.

[Weaver]

That's outstandingly.......outstanding.

PUHLEESE put pics of it where F-14 fanboys congregate........

[DaFROG]

Where do F14 fanboys congregate?

Feel free to link the pics etc to any F14-centric forums etc out there

[Captain Canada]

Very nice ! The colours actually suit it quite well !