African Tomcats

[Gekko_1]

I will tell you, that is even better than I imagined  Thank you Richard! 

[Army of One]

oooohh some lovely work on them cockpit tubs..... .......what kits are they..? The Revell 1/72 D..? Looking forward to this......

[Taiidantomcat]

Thank you! Close but they are Revell 1/48 

A little mock up/concept/test fitting. The top pic requires some imagination. Still a bit hard to visualize. The Profile however ... I think I am on the right track.

[Captain Canada]

Wow...that's some neat stuff you got going on there !

[ChernayaAkula]

Damn, that looks cool! 

You know, with the LERXes like that, it just screams for Fulcrum-ish anti-FOD aux inlet doors.

[Cliffy B]

Mmmmm a "Tomcatski", I likey 

[Taiidantomcat]

You know, with the LERXes like that, it just screams for Fulcrum-ish anti-FOD aux inlet doors.

I really wasn't going to go for that... but its a great suggestion and as I think about it, I should do it on one of them at least 

[saintkatanalegacy]

makes me kinda wish the real life F-14's had strakes like those

[Taiidantomcat]

Sexy part of any build, the engines  Not quite how I wanted them to turn out but it adds some realistic depth and despite the rather basic paint it still works really well in test fits.

I will be back on the site tonight, but after that I am going to take about 11 days off hope to keep working on these kits, but I get sucked into the interwebz for far too long and it is hurting building time, plus I have other stuff to take care of In 1:1 scale

[Daryl J.]

I'm getting a kick out of this.    And yes, we understand well the 1:1 scale responsibilities.   :-)

[Taiidantomcat]

Worked on the South African one yesterday



Lots of different dark colors used



drybrushed silver



cool effect using pearlescent nail polish

I am no fan of cockpits but I really enjoyed this one, pretty proud of it so far, can't wait to show pictures of the completed product. I "matt" coated it but its still very glossy so I will try testors dull coat when the weather stops sucking.

Cool roundel ideas!

[Taiidantomcat]

Never had this happen before-- As I was giving the model a final wash down for the primer coat all the lead shot in the nose started falling out!! I used elmers white glue to hold them in and the water made the glue all gooey and the lead shot came lose! So this is the hole I drilled to put in more shot and super glue.



About to mask and paint this afternoon. The Eastern FLEETSTARS won't make it before the deadline. But The good old fashioned western built F-14B/D Tomcat will (hopefully) make the deadline (and turn some heads)

[Taiidantomcat]

White areas masked. initial yellow masks as well.



I really confused myself with the yellow. I knew black would cover it easy so thats not a problem, and Green should not give me troubles either but I still wanted to be cautious. There is a trick that ship builders use were they mask the black stripe on the hull first, and then mask each side of it. They remove the thin first stripe and presto! They paint it black with perfectly measured and spaced masks. I should have done that with the yellow   Instead I had to keep picturing were it would go and adjusting each side  



I had to mask carefully because any overspray from the green would ruin any other color other than black. If you look there in the upper left corner you will see that I knocked over the ENTIRE BOTTLE of Tamiya park Green I was using   Luckily though it didnt spill onto anything. and I was able to clean it up... It still looks like a Martian Homicide (Xenocide?) though. I lucked out again when to stretch what paint I had still had left, I had to cut it with a lot of alcohol. Clearly I wasn't thinning it enough before because it started going on a lot smoother and easier with the extra thinner. Even better, it never overly covered the panel lines between the engine nacelles. Off to the hobby store on the other side of town to get more green. Because I still need to do the underside.



Tomcat in a Ghillie Suit!



So I open up my bottle of Tamiya Red. And discover it is empty Would have been nice to have checked it before I went to the hobby store!! Doh! So I went to look for other reds I could use and found Guards red acryl by model master. When I first started Gathering the paint for this I was thrilled to see I had all the colors available in Tamiya paints. They airbrush easy, and are forgiving of masks. Yay! Red is the only color I have used that isn't Tamiya... and in the next few pictures you will see how it fell short.



will nothing stop the Bleeding? Peeling will stop it! Where it didn't peel, it bled. Even after running an X-acto along the edges of the masks it still peeled. It even fisheyed!! Hazah! So I basically got everything that could go wrong with an airbrush to happen with this one color, and none of the others.

Have I told you lately how awesome you are Tamiya? Because you really are- I apologize for not driving back to the hobby store and buying more of you.

This Morning I removed all the Masks. I debated about this. I thought it might be better to leave them on because I still need to do the black, OTOH The black is the last color So I can easy mask off the entire aircraft so no worries... I am glad I removed them because I needed the morale boost. This has been TOUGH TOUGH TOUGH. Some of it is self inflicted, some is just the nature of the beast. I thought after doing my Taiidan Tomcat I had this masking stuff down... but that is just two colors, and I didn't need to move the masks mid paint session, and worry at every step about overspray or plan every single step and pray I didn't put the wrong color in the wrong place and that the masks held despite handling and constant movement.



The blue went on so easy I started freehanding the other side where I knew it should go with what was left in the airbrush so thats why there is a blue horizontal stabilizer there





Oh red, how I hate you.



Now that, is pretty   There will be plenty of touch ups needed but for now I am off to paint the black.

[GTX]

Looking very fine there

[Taiidantomcat]

Black on