1/72 Revell F-22A Raptor

by Deun Yu

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Before the current 1/72 Raptor by Revell there was the Italeri/Revell kit, and this one is the old Revell rebox of Italeri's early F-22 Raptor. This model was made before the new operational F-22 kit was available and I tried to make it an operational bird with little modification.

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The cockpit is standard, I just added few details like a HUD, seat belts and the canopy mechanism.

It took me several attempts to achieve a decently tinted canopy.  I mixed ink (red, green and black from marker pens) with Future and dipped the canopy into it.

There are some bad fitting parts that require filling and sanding.  The most annoying ones are: weapon bays (if you want them closed), intakes, upper fuselage parts (behind cockpit) and vertical stabilizers.

The main gear wheels look ridiculous and were replaced by spare F-15 wheels. Since their diameter is slightly smaller the finished model is somewhat tilted backwards.

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The real challenge was the paintjob. To make a long story short, the camo is made of iron + black + gray (dark areas), silver (bright areas) and light gray (edges).  Masking the edges prior to applying the gray was awful, it took 2 exhausting hours!  Next came a coating made of Future + black (marker pen again) to dull the entire camo scheme. Few decals were applied, the rest (tailcode and missing aircraft numbers) was hand painted.  The final coat is a clear flat.

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And this is the result of 13 busy but enjoyable days of modeling. 13 days is very quick in my books and it turned out not too bad.

Deun 

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Photos and text © by Deun Yu