Bit more done on "The Bug" last night. Wash. Chipping. Guns added. Gear struts glued in. Still have to fix tires, tailwheel, canopy, inner gear doors, and paint and mount the bombs. 

This one's the product of some fun with filters on the iPhone, but hey, looks nice and mean!

Satch - man you weren't kidding, that Lifecolor OD is definitely lighter than either OD I'm using! Looking forward to seeing it come through paint!

O - GORGEOUS! Great job on the NMF, and I absolutely love the tail striping! I'll get it up on the front page!

Gamera - sorry to hear about the cracking - that's awful! My biggest environmental issue right now is moths. Friggin' things.

O- I think the 'O' stands for 'outstanding'! Great job, esp love the tail stripes- I have problems with stuff like that.

Satch & WW: Great work there too!

Tom & Doogs: Gee, you guys are almost done. Great work.

Guys, I think I've hit one of those modeling slumps here, sprayed white on the tail surfaces of '2 Big & 2 Heavy' as a undercoat since they're painted bright yellow and the paint cracked like crazy once it dried. Guess I'll have to sand the whole thing down and hope it doesn't happen again. I think it's the low humidity and the paint is drying too fast or some such. Kinda peeved and don't want to look at the model right now, I just feel a need to walk away for awhile.

O, Bang up job. Very Nice.

What did you use for the panel lines and overall weathering? Is that a bottle of Flory black, about halfway down? I really like those tail stripes. Congrats on finishing!

Alright ladies and germs,

I’m calling the “Mystery Jug” done!  Getting the windscreen masked, painted, and reinstalled after I accidentally knocked it off took forever!  (It wasn’t for lack of trying, but rather lack of time.) 

Anyway, here are some pix of the final product.  Feel free to share your comments and criticisms.

Thanks for lookin’!

Cheers,

-O

Well, I'll humbly slip in here with a couple photos of the start up of my Academy P-47N.

I have heard some disparaging remarks about this kit, so I had to find out for myself.  It's been setting in the stash for several years, and I just happened to have a Eduard interior zoom detail set for it.  I wanted to show the sidewalls of the cockpit.  The interior details are not all that bad for a cheap kit.

The IP painted up very well.  I used the painted toothpick rolled across the raised details to paint the panel.  It proved to be a very effective method.  The panel looked so good that I saved the Eduard panel for another day.  The cockpit worked nicely.  A combination of Eduard placards and handles, with some scratchbuilt stuff busied up the office.  Sorry, no photo.

The kit engine provides some nice detail also.  I added the ignition harness using 26 gauge speaker wire.  It's not real noticeable on the finished model, but it gives a lot of depth if you're looking close.

I've plugged along a little further, wings are all in place.  Cowl, gun barrel inserts, wing pylons are all in place.  I think I'm about ready to prime.  I'll be eventually finishing with an Alclad NMF.  Rick.

Good deal. That Trumpy P-47N looks like a great kit.

Did the gear and bombs tonight. Ready for the clear coat! I'll be on to my 109 next, then the Tony.

Tom - yeah, still need to do ordnance (bombs and bazooka rockets) too, and the bombs are still on the sprue tree. But definitely home stretch!

Once this one's wrapped I'll be doing some non Jugs, but I'm planning to do Trumpy's big P-47N before too long. Too many things up in the air for me to put a time to it though...

Did some work on Lucky today.  Knee surgery tomorrow so I should be able to model without interruption!

I tried the Doogs method of preshading.

Life Color OD with some Faded OD 1 postshading.  My OD is significantly lighter than Doogs'

More to follow...

satch

Awesome! You're there. Looks like some weathering and the gear, then done? You gonna build anymore jugs, or are you on to Gamera's build?

Thanks! On a side note, I think it was Gamera that brought up flaking and alclad? I will very lightly sand my next NMF build's primer a bit, for adhesion reasons. For the most part, I have only had an issue with flaking on the leading edges, where I was handling it. I did have a tiny fleck come off around the taped areas for the OD, which caused me a bit of trouble. It probably wouldn't be a bad idea to "seal" the alclad asap, before taping, etc.

I just got my alclad gloss in, so overcoat tonight, followed hopefully with the decals tomorrow, then light sheen, gear and bombs. She'll be done...er, almost. Carpet monster, or otherwise, ate my tailwheel gear strut. A call to Hasegawa today for a replacement part remedied that,...as well as an identical kit ordered, for an encore 1/32 Jug, "Wee Speck", soon.

Looking great Tom!

Got a rare bit of daylight modeling in today since the wife took longer leaving Houston than she'd planned. Sprayed a filter of OD over the markings to fade them a bit. Unmasked the canopy. It's gettin' there...

Nice Doogs! Worthy of another plaque, no less!

I got the MM OD enamel on...

So I know I said I didn't want to just work on "The Bug", but, well, I hate leaving a task unattended to...

Masked off the cowl (protecting decals with paper covers):

Masked and sprayed red triangles with Tamiya Flat Red with some Hull Red and Red Brown added to more-or-less match the decals:

Because of the way they line up, had to mask every other one, spray, then go back and mask the ones I'd missed.

End result:

 I also recommend Tamiya XF-69 NATO Black for tires. Looks quite nice.

                                                Joe 

DOOGS! BIG CONGRADS on your well deserved win!!!

Beautiful model, and I think you're allowed a short nap before you start on your second jug

Tom: Yeah, that's what I need is a monster paint booth though it would help not to paint in my dusty basement. Still yeah Alclad is pretty easy to sand trash out and repaint.

Joe: Very nice, you're humming right along.

Great work Doogs, congrats on your class win! MC looks incredible, what a unique paint job.

Doogs;

Congratulations, I wouldn't mind seeing that in an upcoming FSM feature.

Nice Job Doogs !

cool, thanks guys

 A technique for tires, that's worked well for me in the past. I mix floquil prussian blue and flat black. About 1:4. Pastels very lightly on the hub, mostly inner hub. Thin wash of tamiya earth, and/or buff on the treads. I'll have to take a look at the vallejo dark rubber. Sounds like good stuff.

some assembly required

wow doogs thats some great  work! congrats on the well deserved win.  could you help me on how  you finished the tires on both the tam. and revell 47s youre working on. ive always had peoblems in this area. thx

                                         S.A.R

Sure thing!

Both kits are wearing Ultracast shoes, but the process should be the same for kit tires, too:

1 - Prime

2 - Paint entire tire black. Semi-gloss, flat, whatever.

3 - Paint hubs silver. I used Alclad Aluminum.

4 - Weather the hubs. I used a sludge wash of Promodeller Dark Dirt.

5 - Paint tires. My preferred tire paint is Vallejo Dark Rubber. Thin a bit more than usual, and paint the area around the hubs first. Use a big-ish brush that comes to a fine point, go slow and steady and just kind of drag it around the hub. Jug tires are pretty easy since there's a nice divide between tire and hub. This sucks a lot more on tires where there isn't. Gradually work out until you get the whole thing painted.

7 - (I didn't do this step with MC since I was rushing...) Weather the tires. I prefer pigments for when you want to get down into the tread (mud) and drybrushing for when you don't (main example is sand on PTO island-based aircraft). In the latter case, sand doesn't stick in between the tread, so you don't want pigments since they'll get trapped. I've considered using pigments mixed with acrylic medium or Model Master flat clear or something to turn them into a "paint" that could be dry-brushed on, but I haven't had the opportunity to play with it yet.

wow doogs thats some great  work! congrats on the well deserved win.  could you help me on how  you finished the tires on both the tam. and revell 47s youre working on. ive always had peoblems in this area. thx

                                         S.A.R

Thanks gents! My first-ever category win, so I'm pretty stoked! My Achilles also took home bronze in open-top armor. Biggest surprise of the show for me was seeing not a single 1/32 Tamiyastang. Last September in Austin a good half of the 1/32 entrants were Spit VIIIs and IXs.

Unfortunately, getting "Magic Carpet" off the bench as sapped all desire to work on "The Bug"! I'm going to keep plugging away since the end is in sight, but probably at a slower pace...I just want to work on something else too bad.

Joe - that bubbletop's fuselage is nowhere near as bad as you made it out to be! Keep it coming!

DoogsATX, Impressive finish and congrats on the trophy.

 Thoght I'd  throw up a couple of progress pics on the fuselage work. I've pretty much got everything smoothed out now just filling/sanding the little nooks and crannies and slowly restoring lost detail. This little endeavor prompted me to finally order the rivet tool from UMM. It should arrive Mon.

                                                          Joe

Doogs - Congratulations on the Award!!!  Awesome job!!  I would have been totally shocked if it had done any less.  You and the others on here never cease to amaze me with the quality of craftsmanship on here! 

Mike

YOOHOO! That's fantastic Doogs! Congradulations!

                              Joe

Congrats again! First place!

Well, the long night paid off! 

I'm happy to announce this is now an AWARD-WINNING Group Build!