Murad ÖZER with your blessing i wanna marry her Michael.

Michael Phillips Thanks Bernd, Konrad, Bart, Spanjaard, Dale, and Murad!

Dale, as you can see in the pics, my work area looks like a tornado ran through it. I think part of the reason I build so fast is I just put stuff anywhere while I work. LOL The downside is bench re-set after a project is complete takes awhile... OH, and sometimes it hard to find things I am looking for ("Now, where did I put those damn sprue cutters?" LOL

Murad, I now pronounce you Man and... um... jet? LOL

Maciej Bellos Man, I can't always seem to find my tools, more so my bright yellow sprue cutters... !!!

Splendid results on the metal areas. Can't wait to see her finished!

Erik Leijdens Great work so far Michael, the exhausts are fantastic mate

Spanjaard excellent result on the exhaust. fantastic!

James C Looking fantastic Michael. Love the metal paintwork.

Kees Kleijwegt Metalwork on the exhausts is stunning!

Donald Dickson II I hesitate to say this, because they look freaking awesome, but yes, I would tone down the blue a bit. That is in no way to say I think you did anything wrong. As a matter of fact, I was told by a former Wild Weasel pilot (yes, we have one in one of the clubs I belong to. Makes it hell to bring in a Spook or Viper LOL) that I should blue the exhausts on my F-4 a bit, and I have yet to do so because I have never done that. So you are way ahead of me there anyways.

Kerry Cox I should have mentioned that the discolouration of the tail pipe metal is most convincing, and not easy to do Michael. really impressive mate. I'd like to see you do your magic on an F-100 Super Sabre and all the colours it has on the tail end. :-O Yes. ?? hehehe

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Thomas Tuerler Very nice paintwork, Michael, another real beauty for the display case.

Michael Phillips Thanks Kees, Bernhard, Bernd, Kerry, and Thomas! You guys really make me proud and honored to have such great modelers compliment my work.

Kerry, that looks fun! Look at those hues! Hmmm, I don't think I even have a HUN in my stash. Which kit is the best of this beast in 48th?

Michael Hickey Nicely done.

Kerry Cox Michael. I have been hunting around for an F-100 SS and Trumpeter have one out in 1/48, and in Thunderbirds livery too. Monogram had one out a few years back, but I get the feeling Trumpeter got that old die and cleaned it up a bit. Titanium is the metal the whole back end of those 'Century' series birds had and it threw up all kinds of delicious colours and hues, and the F-100 was the best I ever saw for the effect. I have seen a lot of attempts, but not too many have been able to capture that lovely metal finish, but I rekon you could make a good job of it.
CHALLENGE. !!!

Przemek Przybulewski Very nice, I really love it.

Michael Phillips Thanks Michael, Kerry, and Przemek!

Kerry, I saw Danumurthi recently did a HUN and really nailed the heat-stressing on that, so that would be my aspiration to attain. It definitely will be quite a challenge!

Kerry Cox I just had a look at his album too just then and your right about the 'nailing' of the look of heat affected titanium. Sensational. .
It looks photographic almost.
I have bookmarked it for my reference section, but the after market items are a limiting factor to me. But oh well. And thanks for the link too.

Michael Phillips Off and running on the Tornado IDS! Got some work done on the cockpit today. First time using decals on the IPs. Turned out pretty nice I think.

Murad ÖZER Michael you do love your greys!

Michael Phillips Haha, I sure do! This is my third gray one in a row... and my next one, the completion of my on-hold KH Fitter in Polish markings, will be the fourth. LOL

Hmmm, somehow I accidentally commented on the project instead of the new album. Doh!

Bryn Crandell Looking good so far. It is amazing how much time we spend on cockpits only to close them up. Love it with larger scales so you can see the detail, and this has got some detail.

Holger Kranich Will you make a german Tornado, Michael? Work on the pit looks already very nice! I´m curious if the complex kit will slow your building speed down, i bet it wont!

Michael Phillips Thanks Bryn and Holger!

Bryn, I hear ya! I really am not great at cockpit detailing, and I don't spend as much time on them as I should lol.

Holger, yep, this one will be a German IDS. Going to do plain old in-service jet. And you are not kidding about it being complex! I thought the ICM MiG-25 was complex, but this one is far more so. But I am plugging away at it. Just got the wings attached last night.

Holger Kranich That sounds good, Michael!

scalemates excellent example of a Project on scalemates!

Michael Phillips Thanks Tim!

I really love the project feature of Scalemates. I spend a lot of time organizing my future builds using it. As of right now I have about 163 of the 180-something kits in my stash organized in a project. I will add about one a day until every kit I have is in a project.

Michael Hickey I love the look of this Tornado, well done.

Donald Dickson II Considering all the options seem to be Navy/Marines, flip a coin. I DO like the look of the VF-96 plane though.

My question. Have you built the Academy F-4? If so, I will be curious to see what you think about the ZM in comparison. I got to see the ZM kit before it hit the shelves. And while it looked very impressive, I didnt get an Im going to buy this one over the Academy kit vibe from it.

Konrad Limmer I have the VF 96 Kit from ZM. Will be the next one after my current F4 from Acadamy. I'm following this build with interest.

Michael Phillips Well, thanks for everyone's input, I have made the change! The F-4S has now moved into the #30 slot, so I should get to this late this year or very early next.

Clifford, I am going to do the Heater-Ferris Scheme of VF-301 or VF-302, not sure exactly which one yet.

Donald, I have not yet built an Academy Phantom. I have, however, built two Hasegawa Phantoms. Those are really nice kits, actually... they fit well, very good shape, and a very quick build. The only issue with those though are the bad intakes and you have to be careful not to get an old boxing with raised panel lines. I do have a couple Academy Phantom kits, so at some point I will build one.

Patrick Hagelstein Yay....

Patrick Hagelstein Yessssss!!! I'm surely looking forward to that new #30! I have this kit as well and want to see how a real professional handles it!

Donald Dickson II I did the Good Evening Da Nang boxing of the Academy kit. The only real issue I had was with the intakes, and that may have been my fault. I very much liked it. Havnet done the Hasegawa yet. And I have the 1/32 Tamiya waiting in the wings.

Michael Phillips Thanks guys! Looking forward to this one, the kit, the scheme, the subject. Woot!

Maciej Bellos Woohoo! A Zookei Mura. A Phantom. A Ferris. Yeah!!!

Marko One have one LIKE from me.

Christian Ristits Very well done, especially the paintjob and subtle weathering!

Anna Love to see models posed in-flight. Beautifully done, Congrats!

Michael Phillips Thanks Marko, Christian, and Anna! I am happy with how this turned out. This is my 3rd completed model build. The weathering is very subtle, that was my goal. Pictures of the real aircraft show it to be kept quite clean since this was a showbird of sorts. Anna, this is my first in-flight build, and I too love the look... but getting there is no fun! Closing the doors on this kit was not fun LOL. My next build will also be in-flight as well I think.

Wim van der Luijt That's one project you can be proud of! The weathering looks just right to me too...

Anna @Michael - I hear that, I'm closing the gear bays on a 1:48 Hasegawa F-4E, it's a lot of work.

Christian Meyerhoff Excellent Work! The Intruder is one of my favourties.

Sarunas D Looks good. Would you recommend this kit?

Holger Kranich Had this kit years ago... One of Monograms best! I had my fun, building it.

Michael Phillips Thanks Sarunas! This is a blast from the past... This was actually only the third model I ever built, back in late 2015, and my very first in-flight build. I had not yet started weathering my models, only used pre-shading at that point (and not black-basing at this point, that started with my 12th model, a VF-84 Hasegawa Tomcat).

I remember the kit being pretty nice, and fit being pretty OK. All raised panels, however. I would def recommend it, as long as you are aware it is not a state of the art kit by any means. But I have heard it is the most accurate, shape-wise, of all the 1/48 Intruder kits.

Stephan Ryll Very nice build and paintjob Michael

Clifford Keesler How did I miss this one? Great job.

Maciej Bellos I think you did well with the weathering. Here is an example of an SMT (27 Red):
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Dale Marston Very nice Michael.

Kerry Cox That is one mean looking machine.
Superb in every way.

Ed Froix WOW that's nice!

Xander Jansen One hack of a build!! Well done !

Michael Phillips Thank you Thomas, Sarunas, Philip, Gavin, Anthony, Clifford, Maciej, Dale, Kerry, Ed, and Xander! I was away for the weekend and it is such a pleasure to return to so many wonderful comments and compliments. I really appreciate it!

Maciej, that is indeed one of the pics that I looked at when trying to decide how to weather my model. I also thought it was interesting to see the contrast in actual color of the grays in the two aircraft in this pic. Goes to show you, especially with Russian Aircraft, that actual color is not so important. It is all about what color you see with your eye, picking out what looks right to you, and going from there. That is what I did on mine, I just picked grays from my paint stash that looked about right for each color.

Kerry Cox You can't trust those bloody Russians Michael. hahahaha
Even when it comes to a simple lick of paint.

Clifford Keesler The one looks almost a very faded Flanker blue. So I guess you are right about the eye of the beholder. But then again I'm a blind old man. LOL.