Oh my, how did I miss this thread!!!
Is it to late for me to add my name to the list?? I looked at the first page and it seems like Aug 15th is the deadline. I'm 55 minutes into August 15th...
Well, I'll assume that you'll let me in.... if there's a revolt, I'll quietly back out of the saloon doors and mosey on over to the next bar that will take me...
I'm building the Hasesawa 1/72 Jumpin'Jacques P51D. Started on it in late July. Here's the box:
Here's a couple of shots of what she looked like a couple of weeks ago. I'm not adding any details to the kit, other than some scratch seatbelts.
Here's a crappy shot of the prop. I'm trying to show some subtle weathering on the prop. I did this by using Humbrol flat black, which dries relatively slowly. After it was dry to the touch, but not cured (a few hours) I used a fine scouring pad to add some soft weathering to the paint. I like it, and it's not overpowering for 1/72 scale.
Here's what it looks like after a bit of work tonight. A few notes:
- I used Humbrol flat aluminum metalizer for the finish. I'm not sure I really like the paint for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the 'grain' of the paint seems to coarse for 1/72. It went on nicely and looked smooth/consistent, but seemed a bit out of scale. Second, it rubbed off when you touched it. I never had any problems with finger prints, but over time, I'm sure the edges would rub through from handline. I ended up puting a coat of future over it before the decals for fear that the decals wouldn't stick, or that the finish would get messed up. This changed the look of the NMF, but I'm OK with how it looks. It's more 'silver' than NMF now, but I decided to finish it off anyways.
- I haven't built too many kits, but I thought the decals in this kit were awesome. All of the invasion stripes are decals and there are 3 or 4 that go together to go around the fuselage. They fit extremely close and I only used a tiny bit of black paint to touch up a couple little spots. The 'star' is a separate decal from the stripes, and I really liked that the area underneith the 'star' is white on the invasion stripe decal. This way, you don't see any 'line' through the decal.
- I had a bit of trouble with the yellow symbol on the tail of the plane. I used a few different decal solvents (including solvaset) and it's still got some minor silvering in it. Can't really see it in the pics, but it is there, trust me. All of the decals had either Mr. Mark Softer or Solvaset applied to them, and worked well.
- FYI, almost all of the markings on this plane are decals. The anti-glare panel in front of the windshield (olive drab) is about the only paint (other than the alum.) on the plane. Oh, and the wingtips are painted blue as well, but the tail is a decal.
One thing I did before the 'future' and the decals went on, was add some weathering to the aluminum paint. As I mentioned, the Humbrol metal-cote was delicate, so I dragged a fine scouring pad over the alum, thinking it would make it look like it had some light weathering. It's difficult to see in the pic, but it's subtle and personally I like it.
Not much left to do, but I'm planning to put an overall flat coat on the finished product. I'll wait for the decals to dry, then shoot it with Testors Dull Lacquer. I'm going to try to improve the guns a bit too. Should have this one done in a couple of days (barring an unforseen catastrophe!!!)
Murray