1/48 Hasegawa F/A-18C |
Gallery Article by Graham Symmonds
on
Nov 6 2003
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This is Hasegawa’s 1/48 F/A-18C dressed up in the Two Bob’s All American Bug decal set. I think that the combination of low-viz grey and a splash of colour is very cool. I added a Black Box update set and found some fine stainless mesh to cover up the “hell hole” in behind the cockpit, and used Cutting Edge’s canopy masks.
The build was excellent – the parts went together very well, with little filler needed (what was needed was easily applied using ARC’s “no-sanding-putty-application” technique (of course I got a few odd looks as I rummaged my wife’s cabinets for nail polish remover!)
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The model was painted with Testors acrylics after pre-shading. I then just added a bit of white to the paints in the airbrush cup, and picked out random panels to show variation in the greys. Interestingly, I found that this worked out great, as the mixture got progressively lighter as I went along giving me different shades as I moved from panel to panel. I was trying to get the look of the aircraft after a few weeks of flying in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, so I added a wash of thinned done Tamiya Smoke to the entire model, focusing on the undercarriage to get that grimy look. A bit of blank ink was applied and smeared with a finger along the air flow lines to simulate the leaking of a bit of oil. All of these techniques I picked up from my daily review of ARC and the helpful hints provided.