A-1K Skyraider, -Desert Storm- USMC ***FINISHED, Pg. 9***

[Old Wombat]

That choccy-chip came out nicely, Brad!

[TheChronicOne]

Big thanks!! I'm really happy!  I can't believe it looks so nice. *I* made that?!?!         Now I just need to get the weathering right.... not one of my strong suits.

[Riksbar]

It reminds me of this image

[zenrat]

It's making my hungry.
Time for some ice cream.

[Old Wombat]

It reminds me of this image

This works better (I copied the image location rather than the link location);

[Captain Canada]

Starting to look good now !

[TheChronicOne]

Cheers, everyone!!

I posted this stuff on the Facebook in a "normie" group and people dig it!! I think it has been my most popular post there yet and people were asking how to do it and downloading the pictures and stuff.    I was trying to implore these folks to try it, "give it a go!" It wound up not being all too difficult to do. I'd like to see someone attempt it in different colors so I hope I stoked the fires thoroughly and to a more greedy point it sure made me happy that so many people like my build. Usually I post stuff on there and get like 11 likes and a bunch of crickets. 


Anyway....  the weather has turned again so it's a good excuse to stay inside which means I should have plenty of time for this today. I have to finish painting the bottom in heather grey then I can gloss coat it and start the transfers. While the gloss dries, I'll grab my big pile of prospects and start whittling down to what I'll eventually use.

[TheChronicOne]

Alright, I finalized the paint as much as I could. Touched up stuff like the cowling leading edges and wing edges, made wing walks, painted some antennas, and  painted some nav lights. I also painted the gear bays and finished getting the bottom painted. I glossed it all and now it's ready for the transfers.



Now I'm needing a home for this thing and I settled on VMA-332, a Corps attack squadron that was active in time period of Desert Storm. Naturally, I don't have the proper unit markings so I grabbed my trusty sheet of Navy lettering to help! I've also gone through my prospect decals sheets and found some stuff I think should work. A combination of black lettering and grey stencils with regular full color roundels.

I'll start putting this stuff on tomorrow I guess.

I also decided to add some detail to this thing since people seem to like it. So, I found a tail antenna, a post for the position light on the tail, some copper wire to bend into a foothold to stick on the side of the fuselage, and some very thin copper wire to use as an aerial wire antenna!   

[ysi_maniac]

Wow! That scheme, I love it! 

[TheChronicOne]

Thank you!! I'm a fan of that camo so I'm glad I was able to do it justice.    Now let's hope I can do the weathering right. 

[Riksbar]

Thanks Old Wombat

[DogfighterZen]

 That's looking so good...

[sandiego89]

I had my doubts about how chocolate chip would turn out, but you really pulled it off! Looks great!

Dave

[TheChronicOne]

Cheers! I can't wait to get this gross looking gloss off of it. 

To that end, I've gone through the first phase of the transfers. I still have a few left like stencils, unit name (VMA-...whatever) and the serial but I'm going to do a little more research first on the serials. The rest are a bit tedious because I'm going to have to cut out tiny individual numbers so I figured I'd leave it for another day.

No more pictures until it's done. 

[TheChronicOne]

Back to work today on my baby.     I sorted out the transfers. I got the unit markings applied, the plane number, and lastly the serial which I settled on grabbing from a Harrier which works nicely as a direct replacement. Instead of Harriers; Skyraiders. So that takes care of all the plausibility issues. I mean... I COULD have used a bunch of junk from a 1950's Skyray or something. 

After that I glossed it again so I could weather. Have to do that to keep the weathering from building up on the edges of the decals. Before I got too carried away, though, I grabbed a sanding pad and knocked down some of the gloss. Going to take this straight to flat so I think it will help.   

Then the actual weathering finally. The typical exhaust stains are there now.. in a "we've been very busy so haven't washed these in a few weeks" state. It was a rapid war. I also did some coffee staining to simulate oil drip, add variation to the lighter shades of camo, and then did an overall wash with some black added in for panel line variation.

That's it for today but next up I'm going to glue on the external stores that need to have flat paint along with the plane itself so I can do it all at once then I need to hit the store for matte clear. Once I buy that stuff I can clear the aircraft, add on the rockets, then build the light post, antennas, and aerial wire antenna then it SHOULD be done.