Starting my F-4 Phantom Thunderbird build

Jay Jay I'll be looking fo your work in progress! I think I may do my F-16 next, either that or the T-38 Im cobbling together from a mix of parts. 

Hodakamax are you charging admission...we could put it on consignment lol

Keyda gave me a great idea for the display, a corner shelf. Here's a picture of the latest promo on an 18" corner shelf. Dang it JUST fits, why didn't they do the swept wing variant!

Really great final product! Wow, that would look good in my museum! Just kidding on the museum part, Nice work for sure!

Max

Goegeous work . You,ve inspired me to get my T-birds F-16 done too.

Nice work!  The phantom is one of my favorites. 

Beautiful paint job!

Beautiful!

Your work is very nice, these are difficult colors to work with.

Thunderbird #3 in the 1972 colors is finished! I used the #1 plane at Burke Lakefront Airport in Cleveland Ohio as my role-model.

Extras I used on this 1/32 Tamiya F-4E include the GT Resins Exhaust & Seemless Intakes, Afterburner Lights by Magic Scale Modeling, Cam Pro decals plus Eduard photoetch for the cockpit and canopy. All the bare plastic was primed with Citadel lacquer followed by Vallejo Model Air and Metal Color paints.

As I recall with the Blue Angels anyway, the guy riding in the backseat to and from the showsites wasn't a pilot. He was the enlisted crew chief for that particular aircraft. I'm assuming (a dangerous thing, I know) since the rank of the individual whose name is painted under the rear canopy is 'Sergeant', that it was likely the same situation with the 'T-Birds.

However you ultimately choose to go with it  - with one occupant or two - it's going to turn out great. I love showbirds, but generally tend to shy away from modelling them. It's so much easier to fix a screw-up on a "plain-jane" bird. But you clearly have a knack for it. I'm envious!

Bearcat57 I debated how to set it up. They had both pilots when they were in route to a show site. I didn't want to set it up with the drop tanks on it for display, which is how they went between sites, but I had the idea to modify the reo so his arm didn't go to the stick like the pilot. Id never tried that before and figured if i messed it up it didn't matter since I didn't need both figures. when that turned out well I decided to put him in. I guess in the end hes there just to fill an empty seat lol. Long answer i know but you bring up a great point that i debated about. I may consider taking him out.

Wow! that is really looking outstanding. Very very nice paintwork indeed.

Question though: Why are you putting two crew figures in the cockpit? When the T-birds (and Blue Angels) were flying the F-4, it was pilot only during airshow performances. Back seat would have normally been vacant.

Looking forward to seeing the finished product!

Thanks Aggieman, I got alot of advice from the local IPMS club on how to make figures look good. 

Im coming down the home stretch. Here's tonight's progress. I finished the decals and the smoke tubes, then cleared the top with testors gloss clear. Tomorrow  clear the bottom and then glue on the tail and the wing tips to finish her up!

That is fantastic work!  Your figures are really good as well as what you're doing with the Thunderbird paint job.

Hi,

Your paintjob looks great.

Pat

I couldn't wait to get started on the Thunderbird again this weekend. Tonight I got the red striping on the nose and the smoke canisters painted white and blue. 3:1 Prussian Blue to Gloss black seems to be pretty close. I'll put a gloss coat on n it and i think it'll be a close match. Tomorrow, well actually later today seeing as 2am came pretty quick, I will put the blue stripe on the nose and the us air force decals on the sides and then i can let everything dry before glossing all the decals.

Didn't do much this weekend as it was nice out and the yard needed mowed...yada yada yada lol. I did get the decals done on the bottom of the fuselage though, as well as finishing my C-54 which you can check out in the multi-prop group build. Here's the latest on the Phantom -

Oh yes, this is looking very nice. 

BK

Big numbers really appeal to the engineer in me, even if it is chemistry...avagodro's number?

Really looking the part now! Even though it's not that visible i spent some time on the reo today. After seeing a few threads on modifying figures I cut his arm off and repositioned it so both weren't holding the stick. Turned out pretty decent. Had to do a repair on the wing...the gloss varnish dried yellow? Too thick I'm thinking? If you've experienced this let me know if that's the right thought process?

2.33 *10^23 thumbs up.

One step closer! Here's the top... I almost messed this up. Had a horrible time with paint. My "dust" was really dried paint from airbrush. My first batch today was too thin and it ran. Since it's Vallejo i just wiped the plane down with a rag and reshot it with no retarder or thinner. That combo worked. I have alot more experiments too with this paint. 

I've got the first coat of finish paint on the bottom of the fuselage! I'm soooo happy to finally get to this point. Learned something else, even though I practiced on the C-54, I had some stray fibers all over the bottom. I'm using a lens cleaning cloth prior to painting. First time I've had this problem, but that's why I started on the bottom. Will find my tac cloth before i start the top. Looks like I should be done with the major portion, if not all, of the painting this weekend...the wife wants to go out tonight so maybe done by Monday

It's starting to look like a Phantom! I just finished the leading edges of all the wing surfaces. this is vallejo metal paint - using aluminum for the leading edges. 

Just saw this thread. Love the Phantom so I will be watching this one.

Phantastic job on the cans, pit and crew.

 I made significant progress this week. I have the lights mounted for the afterburners and I have the fuselage fitted and glued together! The fit has been just great. I was also thrilled I didn't break anything while doing this. Seems like alot of work to get the fit the way I want it but I keep saying it's worth it. Now I just have to relax and go find something else to do so I don't go fiddling with it while it dries.

I tried a wash of dark blue tonight. This is roughly 1/1/4 water/dish soap/acrylic paint. I waited 20 minutes and then moistened a paper towel and rubbed the surface gently to remove wash from the flat surfaces. I put down a gloss clear first btw.

A black pin wash is good for defining separations between the sleeve cuffs and gloves, but I wouldn't try it over the entire figure. The results, if heavy enough, will make the figure look more like a cell animation than a life-like figure.

But a wash with a darker tone of the base color will add more definition and get you more realistic results.

Happy to help!  

I can't comment on the rest because you're nailing it all, literally picture perfect. What can be said? Lol

But to answer your pilot question, they look great. I would only try a medium- dark blue wash to give the flight suits some added depth. Otherwise I wouldn't change a thing.

You have a serious eye for realism! I am seriously impressed with that skill!

Keep it up!!! :D

I have the metal done on the stabilizers now. I put down citadel chaos black as the initial primer. its used alot for figures I'm told. I like it for the smooth, thin coat that goes on. I seem to have better luck with vallejo paint sticking to it rather than using their primers right on the plastic. So next i put on the vallejo gloss black primer for metal colors. Then matte aluminum on the stabilizer and magnesium for the center section. The center section almost matches the royal blue on the display bird. I laid out all my metal colors trying to find the best match. After this dries I'm going to try and do some weathering so it matches the real thing better.