Subject: Re: Mirage 2000
From: "Steve Bamford ARC" <[email-masked]>
To: "David" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2004 21:35:30 -0700

Hi David,
I just wanted to let you know your article went on ARC today.  Thanks for sending it in.   

Steve Bamford
Aircraft Resource Center
http://www.aircraftresourcecenter.com
 
Live like there is no tomorrow;
Love like you've never been hurt.
Work like you don't need the money.
Dance like nobody's watching.
Sing like nobody's listening.
Live like it's Heaven on Earth.

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: David 
  To: [email-masked] 
  Sent: Tuesday, August 17, 2004 8:17 AM
  Subject: Mirage 2000 

  Gallery Template #08

  "1/48 Italeri Mirage 2000C" 

  by "David Longhitano"
  --------------------

        Steve Bamford will insert full sized version of photo 01.jpg here 

      This is my rendering of one of the most elegant planes ever built, the Dassault Mirage 2000C. I used the re-boxed by Italeri Esci kit, and I built it completely OOB, except for the seat belt I've taken from a spare photoetched plate.  

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      The kit parts go together quite well, with very minimum use of putty, very important thing in my opinion, for I hate filling and sanding! Some problems came out when attaching the two fuselage halves, because of a misalignment of the panel lines in the radome. So I had to cover these lines with CA glue and rescribe them. Fortunately the gray plastic of the kit is very soft and workable, so the rescribing operation was not a real problem. I had to rescribe the panel lines in the fin, too. In fact, strangely, these lines were raised. 

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      Painting is the next step, which I performed using Gunze and Tamiya acrylics. The decals I used are the ones from the box. The box art represents a very nice version of a Tiger Meet Mirage 2000, with a tiger on the fin and a woman in a tiger-bathsuit on the fuselage. Unfortunately the decals quality is not remarkable, so I decided to realize a less striking livery. The weathering was done by rubbing the panel lines with a soft and sharp pencil to highlight the shapes of the panels and nothing more. In fact, all the Mirage I've seen, looked very clean. 

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      I would like to thank Girolamo Lorusso for his precious help.

   David

      Rome, Italy

  Photos and text © 2004 by David Longhitano