Revell 1/32 Tornado ECR WIP

Thanks Fly but I can't get shot gun stuff but the milliput on its own seems to have done the trick. Ok well I decided that perhaps I should take advantage of the cockpit being so sparse and add a bit of detail. Being that there are so many versions of the Tornado and being made in 3 countries there were many variations of the same colours and wiring in the cockpits so I took what I could from Google and tried my best with wire and mesh, and the best part to me is in the back seat there's a round screen which has a rounded screen, the kit part was completely flat and despite my efforts I couldn't get any lens type of build up but then I remembered the spares box! Trumpeters missile lenses were a perfect match! Have a look, I am not finished, probably about half way, I think I will revamp the seats and add o2 hoses etc.

Real ECR cockpit, and my interpretation, I am a million miles away but I feel it's looking not bad.

I managed to get the round glass screen quite well I think.

I know I have a long way to go with regards skills and I have to neaten it up a bit, in real life being that the images are much larger the cockpit looks better in 1/32 scale rather than this, I think it's one of my best efforts, if I can get a better result than my Mig 29UB I'll be happy. As always all input is welcome. 

wiring looks great.......you can also cover the ECR with a simulated cloth like on F-14

I think that looks great so far, Dean.   I dig the scratchbuilt items that you're adding to these models.

Thanks Dre, well I have done more, Revell gave me this as a HUD frame,

Sorry for the blur its bad lighting, I decided I could do better,

I will be adding the instruments either side of the HUD and therefore wont be adding the part yet, but will do soon. 

I hope I don't break that HUD just by looking at it!   That looks soooo much better than the kit part- good job!

Thanks Dre, the thing is I had another look at the actual HUD on a Tornado and the kit part is actually accurate, it looks like the kit part, my efforts didn't fit either way but I have gotten more progress here.

First up, the HUD, this photo shows well the added wires, which add so much to the sparse cockpit in my opinion. I added detail where necessary on the HUD either said of it there's a gauge of sorts lol, no idea what these are for but they're there now.

Next there was more detail added as I saw more down the stbd side of the avionics.

I used a Trumpeter missile lens from my spares box for the HUD which is out of scale but for the model gives a good look as the lens attracts the light well and the green really stands out giving an almost optical appearance, not sure if that's the right way to describe it but I think you'll know what I mean.

Decals were added to the seats from the spares box in the appearance which fitted best, the seats have since been glued into place and the cockpit is finished, the frame will be detailed later in the build. 

The separation part for the engines I put into place actually helped as a support for the hollow area under the wings and I have to say even with the wings open the light inside is minimal and teh engine faces are nearly invisible.

Now the fuselage halves have been glued and attached and sanded as I type this, there will be filler needed as I am useless with milliput, I have to check if there is any on Wednesday in the model shop. The kit is coming together really easily at this point.

A quick test fit showed the parts line up nearly perfect this far. Also found a friend of mine has a friend in the PLAAF who pilots the J-10! So jealous gonna have to build it up again, and see if I can get hold of any photos (doubtful) I'll ask anyway lol.

Well it's not glued yet both halves will have to be cleaned up and smoothed to my ocd standards lol, but I will be posting more as the build continues, probably no updates for a week or so as I have no internet  and have to use a coffee shop, at any rate opinions are always welcome, to me it's starting to look like a Tornado, and I have also been asked to take it to a show at the Ulster Rifles museum in June so I will b taking it there! 

WOW, this is some great build, will keep an eye for this!

Hmm, finished by June?   At least you have a hard deadline to meet, no pressure!

BTW, there's a new 1/48 MiG-31 Foxhound in the works by a company called AMK- I just saw this in an email from Dragon USA.   I couldn't find it on Dragon's main US site, but it is planned for future release.

AMK's website, http://www.amkhobby.com/home/ , is quite bland and gives no info on this... how odd.

Yeah I had heard about the 1/48 Mig 31 if it's true I'm getting it no questions asked, I have seen what Lindberg called a Mig 31 and I saw it looks good from some angles and completely wrong from others, but hey when is there ever a perfect model? Anyway I am going to buy SAC landing gear for this Tornado and Resin Wheels if there's any to get for it, I realised OOB was a no go as I already added quite a lot of Detail that's not kit parts, plus after seeing how good resin wheels look  I've been dying to try them. Also I have thought about this from the start of the build and I am drawn towards a 1991 Gulf War Tornado as they were heavily weathered by flying low over sand and also that Revell Decals are always really really hard to apply and this Tiger scheme would probably take a week to do alone with setting solutions etc and I don't have time before June, so I still could do a Tiger scheme, not ruling it out.

So thinking of that except the stencils are probably all Luftwaffe in the Revell kit, otherwise I may get the Hahen decals but they're quite expensive so I am sort of stuck, or I could just go with the Tiger scheme and suck it up and buy an RAF machine next time lol. At any rate I will be taking this to the show as RAF or Luftwaffe, one way or another it'll be finished by June 1st! 

I'll have photos of some really decent progress in my next post btw just it will be in a few days. 

I think that you might have more fun doing that Gulf War scheme, what with all that staining and color variation.   (that is some significant exhaust staining- thrust reversers or flare/chaff??)

It's funny that the cleanest things in that photo are the bombs!

It's the Thrust Reverser's Tornadoes seem to have very dirty tails because of this in many pictures.

I guess the ground crews didn't have much time for a buff-n-shine in between ops back then...

Love it Dean!

Good looking build there. I did one some years back and the only issue I was that the nose gear strut was awfully weak. Will use a metal set on the next one.

Scott

Lol love it scott, well I have actually found that the ECR was a specialised version that only the Germans and Italians ordered so I had to scrap the idea of an RAF version all together. However the German Naval Tornadoes are pretty much as good looking so that's what I'm going to make. The HaHen decals have been ordered, I actually ordered the Eduard Mask, not because I can't mask, just because they're going to be better than my efforts and far quicker and I have ordered the SAM landing gear as my Eurofighter was ever so slightly unstable with plastic landing gear so Metal for 1/32 is the way to go.

Well I have managed to get more progress done here, I have actually had to put a lot of work into this but I have a long way to go bay far. The deadline is June 1st so I hope (will) be finished by then in time for the model show.

I uploaded a load of photos but none showed up at all in my post for some reason.

This is it so far, I have got the top half primed and ready for a smoothing down with micromesh, all seams appear to be gone, I have to re-scribe many lines which will keep me busy but should be worth it!

Can't wait to see the Navy scheme put on.

Well the decals haven't arrived but the SAM gear and Eduard masks did! I have been going over a few lines and using my new scriber found it to be great, also the whole Tornado has been primed and the dry primer was left for a few days as I had no time basically but now I have managed to buff the primer with micromesh so the paint will have a silk smooth finish.

A few spots where I have had to rescribe lines and smooth seams otherwise the surface feels smooth.

Here's a few lines where I have gone over again. 

However I can see in this photo that the line I scribed again is off at the top, no big deal though it can be fixed easy enough.

Here's the SAM struts.

The detail is the same as the kit parts, I think the SAM gear is basically a reproduction of the kit parts in metal.

Also here's the mask.

The mask is for the Wheels and Canopy only however the diagram shows a German cross. The next part of construction will be painting the aircraft one of the Marineflieger schemes. after this I'll get the aircraft decalled and weathered and then carry on with the build, Here's the two options to paint.

Looks awesome!

Also this.

[Vie

Decisions decisions, if I do the white bottomed one it will mean a lot of scribing as the front fuselage has no detail on the underside, and the wrap around scheme would make it hard to notice if it's not there. 

Well more progress, I have managed to get the top half painted and as you might guess that if I'm saying top half that I have decided to go for the Grey/white scheme which has been a favourite of mine with this aircraft. So here goes with the photos....

 First up I managed to get the lines scribed as well as I could manage which for me is pretty good.

I managed to get the lines to join so there's no more lines disappearing as there was originally on the kit.

Work on the drop tanks continued as the gaps were filled after primer was sprayed over them in order to find flaws.

There were flaws, but easy to fix, I also sanded down the raised detail on the tanks.

Nice work on the scribing.  This is something that I need to improve on.  

Next the weapons were primed and checked for flaws as well.

Well I say weapons, all two of them!

After priming I smoothed the surface with micromesh and washed the aircraft.

Then the nose was sprayed flat black and again smoothed with micromesh 

The nose was them given a gloss coat with klear several times.

Seems smooth enough and shiny enough for me!

So a coat of enamel grey was sprayed over the plane, the finish was rough as sandpaper and all round terrible.

I had to sand the grey back and go over the area again.

More sanding and smoothing as there's no point in putting so much effort into construction if the paint job is going to be terrible.

Again I washed the aircraft to get rid of dust before respraying.

After drying I decided to use the awful patchy grey to my advantage as it will add variation to the grey surface on the aircraft, (I basically thought about what Fly n hi did with his F-15).

I deliberately shaded various areas with different greys and made the patterns random and it started to look like a weather worn airframe.

Next I got my scalpel and started to scratch the paint on purpose to give an impression of worn paint that had been walked on.

I'm not wanting the plane to look heavily weathered or broken, just something that's in good condition but frequently used if that makes sense.

Under the next few layers of paint (very light layers) I managed to get the aircraft to look suitably worn with a good finish.

This was followed with a gloss coat to ensure the paint was protected, about 5 coats of klear was applied.

The top half is completed with the sort of shine I like to have on my models, next I will be doing the bottom half, it is not obvious in the photo but from different angles the model looks different colour wise with regards to weathering.

Well that's all for now, I have to spray a few more parts of grey under the wing as I missed it when painting but no big deal, I will be doing the white bottom next post and ot will be decalled by then too. 

Looking good, Dean.   I like the color modulation (I think that we all owe Fly-n-hi a round)- it adds a bit of depth to such a plain color.   I may have to try those buffing pads to get a smoother finish.

Thanks Dre, I have to say I'm pleased with it so far, however my airbrush broke today as I was about to mix the paint for the bottom half which is pretty annoying as in order to be ready for the show I have about a week and a half to go! Here's where I am at at the moment.

Got the masking done, and now I may well use white primer tomorrow if I cannot get the parts for my airbrush, If I dirty the white up a bit it should blend in.

I can see the light with this lol but I have quite a way to go! All the stores are ready for white as well.

It still has a gloss finish but from this angle it looks matt, pretty much how I want the finish to be.

Just making sure the taps on the intakes matches the fuselage front. Ok the next post of photos should have the white on etc...Also yes Dre if not for Fly F-15 the paint finish would be a lot more boring.

How'd you break your AB??   I agree that the topside has the right sheen to it- from some angles it looks flat and others a more glossy appearance.   The black nose looks spot on for its sheen.

I'm thinking of how I can incorporate all that shading on the black Flanker without it looking too comical- any thoughts on what color I should do all the various dielectric panels and nose?   White would be too stark, the standard medium green is an option and I'm considering that bright Flanker Blue that PB has as his main color...

The small part where the pin goes through at the very front, I was taking it off to give it a quick clean and I turned the part the wrong way by accident and the thread snapped off inside if that makes sense? A bit gutted as I really like my airbrush so hopefully the guy in my model shop will be able to order replacement parts. Well I actually think the panels should be white as is on the Su-47, in fact I would copy the Su-47 (S-37) in terms of paint and finish.

Nice photo, thanks!   That's a pretty beat up paint job, but it could give me some room for distressing the black and keeping the white areas fairly clean as they're a different material altogether.

The paint fading has turned out really good so far!  I like the scratches, too!  How did you do it with a knife blade and not go through the paint into the bare plastic?

I used the edge of a scalpel, the scratches went down to the plastic but because I was painting layers upon layers I knew the following coats would cover them giving a faded scratch so it didn't matter that I went down to the plastic. I have to say the Tornado production has been mothballed until I get paid and is on my kitchen table and will miss the show, however the model shop owner said that he will have Iwata airbrushes at the end of the month so I will get my first really decent airbrush soon as I had thought about using a white primer for the underside but it would mean I have a perfect white belly and a modulated upper surface, so I think that waiting for a new airbrush is the best option.

Also I thought I would show my model shop where I get the stuff, probably a lot smaller than many but there's so much here it's one of the places I want to buy everything lol.

More updates as soon as work begins again!