Patrick Hagelstein
Nice one Martin! 👍

Patrick Hagelstein
Watch out for that ejector mark in the rear central Sparrow well. It's a nasty one! It can be fixed with drops of Mr. Surfacer wiped with Mr. Leveling Thinner, but it will harm your paintwork in there.

Martin von Schreckenstein
Thanks Patrick! This kit really builds itself! (the ejector marks do, however, provide some headscratching moments haha) I have applied the basic layer, took some pictures and then continued with further layers. The bleaching was a bit overdone but I will mask some areas off and then darken it back again. The actual plane varies greatly from the original squadron scheme so sadly the demarcation line in the back of the cockpit will not make it either way. Quite a handful, these TPS Tomcats. Although HiViz is not without its challenges either I guess 🙂

Sergej I
sweeet 👍

Piotr Sarniński-Górecki
Tomcat, Gypsy, low-vis - I'm in 🙂

Patrick Hagelstein
Yeah, that Academy kit is surprisingly good! Not that extreme refinement as G.W.H., but very buildable and well engineered with great surface details.

Martin von Schreckenstein
i am certainly looking forward to my gwh double build and academy certainly is a very pleasant build but i will be going back to hasegawa for most of my future builds. best price to detail ratio🙂

Patrick Hagelstein
I found my new Tomcat muse in the Academy kit. I find the Hasegawa intakes overly complicated vs. those in the Academy kit. Panel line detail is finer though in the Hasegawa kit. But hey, that's the fun of this hobby, everybody does whatever brings most enjoyment. 😉

Martin von Schreckenstein
exactly. also my next hasegawa build is going to have the intakes covered haha. should save some headaches🙂

Martin von Schreckenstein
welcome Roland, Sergej and Piotr! I added some pics documenting the topside painting. the masking was difficult and fruitless. i shall attempt again

Sergej I
Martin, I haven't built the HB yet, but versus a Hasegawa, the Academy is top. Maybe you can play with make-ups, oils and so on later, to highlight edges and recover some panel lines... have a break, drink a whiskey and go back to it 👍, it's turning into a nicely weathered cat.

Martin von Schreckenstein
Thank you Sergej, many whiskey breaks will be had before i continue🙂 I have doubled down on the hasegawa kits tho. after trying out all the new kits, the gawa ia still ma favourite🙂 guess nothing will break that bias now. i am looking forward to my great wall hobby double build though🙂

Sergej I
I bought the GWH Tomcat last week to compare, let's see 🙂 if it's worth 20€ more over Academy.
But the Hasegawa will end up as an in-flight quickbuild...

Daniel
Hey Martin, looking really good!
I like the respray mask approach! To get more defined respray areas a trick is to go straight over the masked area with clear orange and/or thinned black for more contrast along the edges from the overspray. This even works if the respray under the mask is of the same color as the rest, the dark frame kinda tricks the eye 🙂. If too much you can easily blend it down with the thinned base color again.

Martin von Schreckenstein
Thank you Daniel for your encouragement and help. After a few whiskey breaks, I sprayed the bright areas again to redo the masking and also did the walkways. I like how the walkways turned out as i have seen that they were quite messy on some TPS jets. After the top coat is redone, I will not continue with washes, they do not give a realistic look in 72 IMO, especially with the lines so pronounced.

Daniel
👍 love the worn down edges of the anti-skids, very realistic

Martin von Schreckenstein
Few teasers for the finished build. I will improve my photography setup and make an album then. The topside was redone and no wash was applied this time. it was very nice so i put decals on and sealed them with matte varnish. i then followed up with a bunch of dirt. Still pretty crude but hey, thats what the jets looked like right. Love the result tbh but my heart is with hivis hasegawa builds 🙂 Gypsy 205 now sits proudly next to my TPS Black Knight, I am gonna shoot them together for my closing album. Thank you everyone for your support and advice 👍