Hey SP, that's beautiful man! Love the camo and the panel lines look great. Big kudos to you sir!

Thanks Nathan. Yes I used mostly Humbrol colors with only a few exceptions: white on the fin flash and missiles, green on the fin flash, aluminum in the speed brakes and wheel wells, weathered black on the tires, clear green and red on navigation lights, chrome silver on piston struts, and burnt metal on the afterburner nozzle. But all the main colors are Humbrol and I used their Satin clear for the final top coat. Thank you for the kind words and I am glad that you like it.

Great build Stik! I'm really diggin that camo. You did a great job on the lines. The rocket launchers really stand out on that frontal shot. Are you using Humbrol clear coats too? I hope I can build jets to the same standard as you guys here with more experience.

OK, I am calling this one done for the purposes of this GB... Here in all her "What If?" Latin glory, Monogram's 1/48 F-20 (AKA F-5G) Tigershark... the ultimate development of Northrop's N-156 program which sired the T-38 Talon, F-5A/B/C Freedom Fighter (Skoshi Tiger),  F-5E/FTiger II and finally the     F-5G/F-20

and posed with her Argentine older brother, Mirage IIIEA

Hurrah! Looking forward to the finished photos!

So close now... Topcoat of Satin on... masks removed, finishing up detail painting and gluing final bits in place...

Well I've got the wash on and lots of bit detail painting done today. Tomorrow is looking real good for nearing the finish line here.

I dont know how you missed the post G, but I am glad that you saw it eventually and liked the results. Yesterday I put on another coat of Future over the decals to seal them in and I did some detail painting on the rocket pods and landing gear. Today's plan is for the wash... Let us see how life co operates there...

Gee how did I miss your last post SP!?! Good to see the decals went down so well, not much left now.

Nathan: Looks pretty darn close to the photos I've seen.

Thanks Nathan. Oh I think that Soviet cockpit color looks right on! That is a beautiful detail set that you have there for your Fishbed. Commie or not, I do like Migs. Almost all of them look the part- as a fighter should! I am looking forward to see what you do with that front office.

Looking good Boss! Great looking Aztec Decals!

I think I got the famous Mig turquoise green down. Here's what I mixed up:

It ended up looking close enough:

The key is to get it looking more green than blue(turquoise). I used some chipping fluid to add scuffs in the cockpit tub:

And the seat:

Next up is dry brushing and some detail painting, along with adding all the color pe

OK as promised earlier here are the shots with the completed decals. Just a little more colorful now. And the buzz/ID numbers (fictitious) Mexico's F-5E's have 4xxx and 45xx series ID numbers, so for my "what if" MAF F-20, I figured that 5xxx series would do...

Oh Vance... What are we gonna do about that? Well I am pretty sure that you build at a faster clip than I do. But we are ready for your build here when you are. Today I got the decals finished up and took photos, but ran out of time to get them posted on here. Either later tonite or tomorrow I will get them on here. Once again I am quite pleased with Aztec decals quality. I just wish that they did not do those two part decals for the user to apply and did it all on the sheet in production.

Looking good gents. Chomping at the bit to start my twin-engine FW machine, but I have some storage/display issues to sort out first. So of course, like any true modeler..... I've started on something else in the meantime?!??

Nice work on the F-20 Stik.  You're makin' me want to get another one!

Yeah, that looks great! Really impressed with the way you're drilling out the instrument panel there.

Wow!!!! Those parts are beautifully detailed! That green inside the burner is sure different. I have never seen that before. Plenty of off white ceramic on US engines in there, but I suppose the Rooskies could have gone with a green ceramic.

Gamera- Lovely looking Corsair. Great camo and decal work. It sure looks real nice in that scheme. Very nice outdoor pics too!!

Stik- Great airbrushing! Thats a smooth gloss coat. Decals really like nice as well. I wish I was at that stage in my build.

Speaking of my build, I got back to working on the Mig-21, and now am focused on the resin cockpit and nozzle, which all need to be completed before closing up the fuselage. Here's the cockpit parts:

I chose to build up the panel using resin and pe dials, which means drilling out all the instrument holes, and thinning down the panel parts. 

The gunsight was masked and will be painted before its attached, so I can pull the masks off. There are resin parts that need to be glued to the windscreen and canopy, so this meant masking the canopies now. I decided to mask the inside as well, for a better overall look. I masked the outside first, then used the mask sheet as a template. I layed Tamiya tape over it, burnished it down with a toothpick, put on my optivisor, and cut. Some parts took a few tries, but I think I got it:

Then I started on the nozzle. I hope at least some of this resin beauty can be seen in the end?!:

The inside is supposed to be green, trust me:

Then a primer coat followed by silver, so I can do some chipping later on:

Thats it for now. No modeling this weekend as I'll be gone...just when the fun was starting...

LOL! No worries my friend. Whatever you used looks great!

SP: I hate to say this but honestly I can't remember what I used now. The paint bottles were in the box when I was building her but I've returned them to the paint drawer now. The tan was Tamiya Buff, the light green was something Japanese from the MM Acrylic line, and the dark green was something Tamiya too.

Sorry :(

Thank you G. I rotated the damaged paint side of the afterburner away from the camera in each photo ;-) It is bad and quite noticable on a couple petals. I had to sand them out down to bare plastic.

OK, what colors did you use? it looks like OD, a medium bright green, and some kind of khaki/tan. I think the Buff coat looks perfect to blend it all together!

Hey SP, that looks great! Don't see the damage on the afterburner though, looks fine to me, maybe it's the photo?

I have no idea what colours the Salvadorians used, I just grabbed the paint bottles that matched the closest to the few good photos I could find. I sprayed a couple of coats of thinned down buff over her to blend things together, I think I may have over done it, the buff looks stronger in person.

Thanks, I'm hoping to finish up my build for the Heroes and Villains GB and I'll update my sig line with this badge and that one at the same time.  

OK, my turn for a photo update. I did two main things today- get the base decals applied (some are two parters and need an "upper" decal applied such as the national and squadron insignia), and work on the engine exhaust interior detail painting. I still need to do another external coat on the afterburner petal exterior due to paint damage that occured the first time... me getting too impatient...

overall photos of the gloss coated and base decalled exterior

and close ups of the paint touched up and decalled tail- the burner nozzle is not glued in yet and just placed in there for a look of how it will look when finished

I will get the rest of the decals on tomorrow or Friday depending upon life circumstances

Oh that looks sweet.  But again, kinda oddball in wraparound land camo colors... Certainly unique!  What are the camo colors used by the Salvadorans?

And go claim your Latin Aircraft GB Badge with pride

Ok here are the photos, kinda cloudy all week so they're not the best but they should serve. Maybe I can post better ones if the sun ever comes out again:

Cool, looking forward to the photos!

The Corsair is done and I took some photos Sunday afternoon. It was a bit cloudy and I'm not sure how well they'll look blown up. Just need to set aside some time to post them.

Page 2? Oh this will not do!

Well today I touched up the rudder flash tri color. Photos coming tomorrow. All ready for a coat of Future now...

The early models had a clear seeker head. The later all aspect Magic had a mirror looking coating on the seeker head. And yes those look VERY nice!

Here's the missile. I am actually not sure how they assembled it, if it's all one 3D print, two or three?

What's neat though is that the nose dome comes clear, which it should be.

Hey SP, nice work there on the F-104 too. You're on a camo roll right now!