While getting my new building bench up and running in our new house, I needed a project to shake the cobwebs off and to brush up on some rusty skills. During the move, I'd found a box of kits from when I was a kid, and in there was this partially-built F/A-18C from Revell-Monogram. (Scalemates Link) I realized that the Finnish Air Force still uses C hornets, and that I could build this to fit into my otherwise completely-Finn airodrome, with the addition of a few decals and a personal mantra of not looking too closely at details.
I pulled it apart as best I could, and rebuilt it quickly. Fast progress on a large jet (compared to the 1/72 WWII birds I had been building) was cathartic, and the knowledge that due to youthful errors, and generally bad fit/seam lines and lack of detail on this kit, it would never be perfect -- this knowledge let me really enjoy myself and practice some new techniques and materials.
I was able to find this great walkaround of some FAF F-18s, and a great album of airshow shots to get details and weathering inspiration from. Really made the jump from WWII to modern jet much less daunting to have these references. That said, I had to cut a lot of corners, and there is some mismatching. If I ever do another Hornet, I'll get a much better kit so I can focus on accurate details instead of fighting with the styrene so much.
I still can't make Model Master Acryls work out of my airbrush. I know their colors are the best in many cases but Tamiya acrylics are so easy to use in comparison. The MM color results just aren't worth the frustration, harsh solvents, or gummy airbrush parts involved. Oh, and they don't stick to plastic worth a dang either.
On this kit, the bottom "Light Ghost Grey" is MM, but everything else is Tamiya mixes. I can't tell a difference, especially under gloss/fade/dull coats.
I used FAF roundells included in a couple WWII Hasegawa kits (I guess for post-war paint schemes, or just Swastika-related legal reasons?) for the F-18, though the colors and scale isn't perfect. They look pretty good under some Tamiya smoke fading.
I'm not very happy with how the preshaded panel lines came out. They look good in a "model aircraft" way but not in a realistic way. I think I should have faded them out more with a topcoat or varied the shades of the topcoat more. Because of this I decided to try blackbasing on my Hurricane, which I was working on concurrently.
Anyway, here are some photos. I'm happy with the final effect, especially if you don't look at the seams or details too closely.
Thanks for checking in. 