AREA 88: F-5E Tiger II (SHIN)

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October 25, 2019
I've been waiting to open this box for a while.
2
October 25, 2019
The sprues look pretty good.
3
October 25, 2019
Well, let's get grey!
4
November 3, 2019
After struggling to paint them properly, I chickened out and went with decals for the cockpit
5
November 3, 2019
Glued the fuselage together. Nice tight fit.
6
November 5, 2019
After a quick bit of sanding, I'm trying out some undercoat shading.
7
November 17, 2019
Covered that up with a light coat of white... now to mask off the blue area.
8
November 18, 2019
Ta-da! Now it's blue and white... with a bit extra blue on the far wing. A bit of overspray that should be easily fixed.
9
December 16, 2019
I ended up spraying white from a dirty airbrush, so it took more coats than I wanted to fix the blue overspray. At least the aluminium parts look good.
10
December 16, 2019
Most of the underside bits are added on. The aluminium is hard to spot in this light, but it's there.
11
December 16, 2019
A few more details added... looking almost done now. I suppose I should add the cockpit parts before I forget, right?
12
December 17, 2019
I stole some part for the cockpit from the ESCI (repop) F-5A kit... but it's worth it. The decals really bring it together.
13
December 17, 2019
Side by side... a scene never depicted in the manga, but brought together on my workbench.
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December 18, 2019
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December 18, 2019
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Comments

2 25 October 2019, 15:07

25 October 2019, 15:17

Greg Baker
Although not officially part of the whole SCM Aggressor GB, everyone else has F-5's on the go... so why not. I've got an F-5A as well...

25 October 2019, 15:20

Augusto
Have this kit too! Would like to read your impressions of it.

25 October 2019, 15:35

Martin Oostrom
Shin is one aggressive pilot 😉

25 October 2019, 17:04

Nils Steyaert
following 🙂

27 October 2019, 09:55

Greg Baker
Back in action on this one. The fit is nice, but I kind of chickened out on the cockpit control panels. I tried painting them, but nothing worked to my satisfaction, so I went back and just covered them up with decals. Oh well...

5 November 2019, 15:06

Maciej Bellos
Following!

17 November 2019, 14:36

Greg Baker
Thanks Maciej! With the blue on, it's now starting to look like Shin's famous F-5E... that makes it more fun!

18 November 2019, 15:13

Martin Oostrom
She's becoming a beauty. Shin couldn't have painted her better himself

18 November 2019, 19:21

Greg Baker
Had to redo the white top coat, and more or less destroy my meticulous under shading because a minute amount of green paint hidden in my airbrush gave the slight white touch up on one of the wings a pukey glow... sigh. Then I had to redo some of the blue because of inadvertent overspray by the white. I attached almost all the underside bits, so more or less just weathering and decals to go here... oh, yeah... and a chair.😉

16 December 2019, 00:33

Donald Dickson II
Catching this at the end. Opinions on the kit?

16 December 2019, 00:36

Chris Greathouse
Cool looking jet!

16 December 2019, 00:41

Greg Baker
Well, I think it fits together relatively well, but it's pretty basic and does lack for some detail. I'm building a rebox of the ESCI F-5A side-by-side and that much older kit has some much nicer parts... especially the pilot chair and the airbrakes and wheel coverings. The panel details look pretty good though.

16 December 2019, 01:06

Donald Dickson II
I am pretty much in agreement there.

16 December 2019, 03:45

Greg Baker
And there we go... all done! Not as many decals to put on this time, so the final weathering and mark setting went a lot quicker than it did for the Crusader. One thing I did though was swap out the chair/control stick and canopy mechanism from my F-5A build. The old ESCI parts really are better, so even though it was a bit of a squeeze, I decided to give the F-5E "main event" build all the glory and leave the leftovers for the F-5A. I've been sitting on this kit for a long time... waiting until I was "good enough" to do it. So, even thought it wasn't really part of the "Aggressor Group Build", I was inspired by all the F-5s flying around and bit the bullet. All in all, I'm pretty happy. Still little things like missed sanding spots and panel lines that don't quite match up. So I don't know know if I was good enough to build it, but the build is good enough for me... 🙂

17 December 2019, 15:33

Donald Dickson II
Oh please, it looks great!

17 December 2019, 16:34

Neuling
Top result indeed!

17 December 2019, 17:01

Greg Baker
Thanks guys. I still struggle a bit to get a really nice, clean paint job - especially after I try to do the panel lines and weathering. it's not bad... but I feel it could be better.

17 December 2019, 23:26

Spanjaard
very nice, Greg

18 December 2019, 08:15

Nils Steyaert
great work, i like the way they turned out 👍

18 December 2019, 10:21

Greg Baker
Thanks! I have to admit, it's nice to have a collection of Area 88 builds that actually include some of Shin's planes now.😉

18 December 2019, 10:53

Greg Baker
OK... Some final glamour pics are now posted.

18 December 2019, 13:31

Nathan Dempsey
Looking great Greg! Brings back good memories of hanging out in the comic shop.

18 December 2019, 15:02

Alec K
Awesome 👍

18 December 2019, 15:15

Slavo Hazucha
All Aggressor pilots know - when the burning unicorn appears in the skies, it´s ejection time...!

Looking superb in the color scheme & the tail markings just make all further discussion obsolete... 👍

18 December 2019, 15:29

Dave Flitton
Looks awesome! Let's start another!!

18 December 2019, 18:27

Chris Greathouse
Awesome job, great weathering!

18 December 2019, 18:36

Martin Oostrom
This large scale suits you well. Great job as usual

19 December 2019, 07:00

Spanjaard
excellent, indeed

19 December 2019, 07:08