Daniel
Starting big into 2020! This is a truckload of plastic! sadly the detail is rather sparse for the scale...decided against ordering another detail set (the usual negative peak in the financial data around christmas) and try some DIY - Details. Starting with the bang seats, using an aires 1:48 SJU-17 as a model. This will not please the rivet counter, but I try to make it a bit less clunky and a bit more interesting

Daniel
Greetings Roland! 🙂

First Problem solved: The Trumpeter Edition of the aim-9x... pure facepalm. And they even sell those in their 1:32 weapon pack! Well, since every Hornet needs those - and I keep to my scratchbuilding-vows - I tried to convert those to look more like the stuff that normally hangs on the rhinos wingtips. Currently I am working on the seats and the advanced crew station, will update here later

Konrad -
Count me in here as well. Have the Growler from the same company and scale. Looking forward to your build so I can learn something new 🙂!

Daniel
Welcome Konrad! Heard their growler already has the updated rear seat instruments so you at least dont have to mess with those...+ you can go without aim-9s 🙂

Konrad -
Yep that's correct mate 😉! Once I'll go with this bird I also try to build it OOB. Will see this will take some time 🙂!

Daniel
Installed the new infotainment-package and generally fixed most of the cockpit - now belts, some hoses and paint

Daniel
Cockpit is painted and weathered!

Munkyslut
I like the scratch built parts idea, it's like a bit of art, your impression of what you think it should look like & how you'd like it too.
Looks excellent!
Far more interesting than pre-fabbed add-ons 😉

Konrad -
Awesome Daniel!!

Jos Jansen
Nice Daniel, that's a big bird.... watching!

Daniel
Thanks a lot guys and welcome aboard!
@munky: mainly I am just trying to correct the impression that the folks at trumpeter had of what a rhino should look like...kit manufacturers are the real artists😉 But yes, its fun to tinker around and add some extras, and a bit of a challenge as well. Of course pretty primitive to the plastic engineering guys like Bernhard and bughunter practice 🙂
@jos: it really is, an inflated hornet nearly the size of the big cat it replaced...good thing they added a decent looking wing fold mechanism in the kit😉

David Deavall
Very nice indeed

Daniel
Thank you David!

Daniel
Some updates here, mainly tedious wire bending, violent dremeling and using up all my putty…😉

Daniel
Thanks and welcome back mr gunslinger 🙂

Daniel
phew, finally managed to get the fuselage parts together...hard work really, had to build internal spacers to spread the whole thing, also internal bridges over the joints,lots of sanding and dryfitting. Forgot to document this process, but you can imagine. Also sawed the engines off after the compressor blades so I had more freedom to place the intakes. Still a LOT of filling and sanding - bigger plane, bigger gaps I suppose

Daniel
Look who's standing there on its wobbly legs 🙂 first primer down and as expected areas that need work appeared, eg the AR-Probe door, canopy seam... But so far it looks like a rhino, though fit was horrible, the shapes of the trumpy kit are really close to the real thing. Looking forward to painting this bird!

Daniel
Thanks Roland!

Started with basic painting today, switched to ak real colors for this build, was a good decision. I used to tweak vallejos, but ak rc is right on point out of the bottle. Good stuff 👍 The pronounced panel lines are subject to change when I do the overall fine tuning.

Daniel
First Coat is down, now getting in the fine tuning.

Another believer 🙂 👍 I also like the fact that I can brush them, other than my vallejos. I use their high compatibilty thinner which works perfect as expected, I also like that I only need a few drops of paint with a LOT of thinner, still getting good coverage, one thing I didnt like about gunze, where I burned half a bottle for one 48 model...

Slavo Hazucha
Daniel I somehow missed this - happy to come across now... You go to some length to make sure it's true to the original & the idea with the pattern on the tank is great (idea & implementation both! 👍). Big scale in good hands is just a joy to watch. All the extras really shine, good stuff going on here!

Daniel
Welcome Slavo! Merci, well I could do so much more for realism, especially in this scale, but I m too lazy, just fixing what "jumps at me". I am not so keen on tinkering, prefer to paint stuff 😄

Roland, I dumped chemistry courses as soon as I could in school, but that makes sense. Still, cost for thinner is one of the lowest percentages I spend in this hobby, so I'll stay a dumb loyal customer😉

Fine tuning the finish ATM, most would call it over-weathering, but I m having fun 🙂 Steps so far are spraying&masking corosion control, shading dark, salting, shading light, demask, clean, enjoy

Slavo Hazucha
Give Daniel a big canvas & you're gonna get some results!😉 👍

Good planning & "irregular, yet logical" placement of all the shaded elements!

Daniel
Yep, were getting results! completed the paint layers and am decaling right now before doing the oils.
Decals are the best quality one can imagine- But: They are mostly too pale in color - as you see in the pictures, this is as low vis as it gets.
I tried a little test touch up with black oil paint on one Insignia. It works - as can be seen in pic 64, drawbacks: very work intensive, decal borders get a little bit blurry as well…
Not sure if I do this on all of them...I saw pics of very low contrast low-vis hornets but my reference is not that pale
There is also hope that a matt coat will push the contrast again maybe
The other solution is changing the whole setup from low-vis into a cag bird ---
Dont know...whats your opinion guys?

Slavo Hazucha
Sitting home in quarantine & lacking the ability to keep my mouth shut, I´d say pic 63 looks too washed out - maybe on the upper wing you´d find an excuse how that could happen, but other positions will not look good that way... Pic 64 is IMO spot on for a plane in full operational use, looks really well blended in with the rest of the appearance. The borders I would not mind (would not have noticed without hint...) - working with oil paint on it already, maybe even adding some discoloration/paling over the markings could work well (and justify the effort you are taking here anyway...) - even the insignia on the side fuselage of your title pic Hornet shows that effect, so it would definitely be legit on the wing...

Keep up the good work, it´s going to be a big mean salty bug!😉

Konrad -
Very nice and cool looking bug Daniel. Are you building the Wing tips workable?

Daniel
Thank you for your opinion slavo & greetings from a fellow quarantine club member😉 Hope you are doing well.
I have been looking at my problem all day and the same conclusion was building up. Though I would like to call this stage done, I guess I would always be kind of unsatisfied with it and think..why didnt you… so this will again turn into an oil painting 🙂 I will enhance the contrast of the decals with oils, minor inconsistencies will be covered up by strategically placed stains and/or color chipping😉 Gonna play some bob ross and get through with it I guess - You can do it, its your world… ;D

Thanks Konrad! Actually I was thinking about it, but after thinking some more I thought: how often will you go to the shelf and flip the tips? A nice gimmick, but not worth the effort imo, so I will build them up, mainly for logistics. But I plan on using minimal glue, making this reversible for my future self, you never know 🙂

Spanjaard
Nice job !

Daniel
Dank je wel! 🙂

Jos Jansen
This is quite an amazing ride in model building mate...a very nice progress, I follow your build with great interest. I've planned a superbug in 1/48 scale!

Daniel
Thx a lot jos, I sure will be watching!

So, I finished the decal oil rework for the right side, its still pretty subtle but enough to put it in the right looks I think. (compare 60 with 65) Also contributes to a nice overall used look, just as slavo predicted. Now I have to really watch out not to touch any decal while doing the other side...phew...

Daniel
Side B done&happy with it

Jos Jansen
👍...!!

Daniel
Cheers mates, sry for the spam but I am pulling through to the next stage 🙂 wash&grime

Daniel
late night impression from my "workspace" - this is close to completion now

Slavo Hazucha
Daniel this looks really fantastic - the soot & wear job on the elevators is totally realistic & in scale + already on the teaser shot it looks more like a hollywood studio model than a "common kit" 👍

Don't lose focus on the final meters & take care to do some good photos when this gets done!

Daniel
thanks for the kind words slavo 😳 really glad to see the many steps seem to pay off in the end. Still - a lot of things to tweak (one can just tweak around all day on this during home office^^) and I am also thinking of magnetized weapons to vary the loadout and a nice deck base with maybe some figures to put this in the right operational environment...and thinking of a cool way to photograph the scene as well, loads of inspiration on the site!
yeah, so no roll-out this week 😄

Treehugger
Impressive canopy work. Looks super flush.

Daniel
thx! and a bitch to get closed, had to insert sheet, coloured putty and whatnot. Whole thing is under pressure as well...please dont look directly at it, it might explode any second😉

Daniel
Been working on the deck base, and uploaded some in progress if someones interested in this stuff. This is just several layers of cheap thick acrylic paint. I use the same stuff for adding thermal coating on navy ordnance.
Tie downs are currently printed and arrive soon I hope. Cheers!

Slavo Hazucha
Daniel has turned to practicing the deeper rituals of black voodoo magic... 😮

But the results are looking cool, keep things coming! 😉 👍

Daniel
The journey continues, the deck is now done, the crew is being cloned and assembled. Also, received my mini-magnets today and will try to arm her up now

Daniel
Used the early summer for some balcony priming session. Got my first sunburn as well 🙁 These are not even half the weapons in the box! (but some parts are from the tamiya cat, 3 are resin)

Slavo Hazucha
So now you're turning from dark arts to Tamiya crew gene-splicing..!

The deck looks great with the 3D-printed tie downs and all the surface treatment 👍

Also congrats on the first 32 weapons & equippment options 👍 hope you do not run out of magnets!😉

Maciej Bellos
Great looking Super Hornet!

Daniel
Thank you very much slavo and Maciej! Were getting there, back on the balcony, steadied my hand with some beers and painted some more details today 🙂
@Slavo: asking for a volunteer theres always the one guy in the line who doesnt step back as the others^^

Jos Jansen
Wow Daniel... you have magic hands mate, very will done on that carrier base...excellent!

Daniel
Thank you very much for the compliment jos 😳

Got the crew assembled, the clones were joined by a former air force employee who got issued a helmet. Otherwise I am painting weapons...a lot of them, not much to show here - and its draining the mojo a bit 🙁

Slavo Hazucha
You don't have to do a piece of ordnance for every one of the (104 if I counted right) bomb symbols on the nose... 😄

The crew looks cool on the deck 👍 I can almost hear them murmuring "Get it done & grab the camera..."...?😉

Daniel
haha, yeah, they look a bit grumpy, the dude on the right is like: "stop wasting time and get back to the bench man!"
Now I felt obliged to count them myself and can confirm 104 boombooms dropped so far 👍 (and Im preparing merely 36😉 )

Daniel
My new 1:32 Delta-Hornet arrived today and guess what - next to some deck crew, bazillions of ordnance in there …and I still have magnets left... Though part of me hates me for it, I decided that I could need some more loadout options 🤔

Daniel
Fought my way through the last weaponry - phew, that took longer than expected and was getting more tedious than fun. But I will save the time during the next 32 build 🙂

Now, having the bug armed up and on the deck, I could finally take some photos and call it done. Thanks everyone here for tuning in, please take a look:

Blacklions in OIR - Completed | Album by halohead (1:32)