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halohead
Daniel (halohead)
DE

China Flanker completed

Comments

22 11 July 2019, 22:37
Slavo Hazucha
Cheers for a great finish Daniel! 👍 A really nice J-11 Flanker - was looking reasonably good for some time already, but you put some well placed final improvements into it - the very light weathering looks just true to the originals and the few contrasts and highlights that could be placed help a lot too. But I especially like the metalwork - the engines blended perfectly into the main color and the gun shielding is also done very nicely in the right tones and level of usage - looks all very convincing, was a pleasure to watch!

Now, grab an F-111 and on we go!😉
12 July 2019, 05:30
Holger Kranich
Jesus! The burner cans look awesome! Alclad II? Very smooth finish, i like it!😢
12 July 2019, 06:46
Nathan Dempsey
That's a great looking Flanker Daniel. The dark grey is just great on this bird. I agree with the others in saying the exhaust area is just awesome. A build to be proud of for sure.
12 July 2019, 11:33
Daniel
Thank you very much Slavo, Holger and Nathan, really glad you like it! I just added a black wash and made some panel modulations with black and white oils for weathering, nothing too fancy but I wanted a smooth look. Really like the result as those flanker lines are coming out best in that dark semi gloss grey imo.

The exhaust colors are ammos acrylic metals which I like a lot, simple to work with, very resistent and a nice finish (though alclads do look better) heat effect modulations are made with heavy thinned standard Vallejo acrylics

Well unfortunately I am not joining the Pig-Mania (though I would like to build a navy-what-if version with AIM-54 someday😎 ) but its a really cool event going on here! Hope there's more to come!
But I am hyped for my newest acquisition: the AMK Kfir C7, that's up next
12 July 2019, 17:26
Vince Venezuela
Splendid job on the exhausts indeed! Cheers!
31 July 2019, 21:07
Daniel
Thankyou Vince!
1 August 2019, 19:14
Paul Moore
Nice paint job. I really like the blended look that real aircraft show.
1 August 2019, 20:57
Paul Moore
Could you share your secret of the engine discoloration? Very nice!
1 August 2019, 20:58
Spanjaard
very nice looking Flanker
1 August 2019, 21:39
Daniel
Many thanks, Paul and spanjaard! The Engines were my main concern in this build, my first real "metal-work" and I really appreciate your positive feedback!

Not much of a secret in doing this I guess...you can really get artistic, because there are so many variations out there!
I used highly diluted paints over a silver base, first copper (revell enamel), than blue and afterwards black (acrylics). always keeping translucent layers and masking off areas that should differ in look. I made fast, perpendicular sweeping motions with the airbrush close to the plastic to get straight lines and no spiderwebbing.

In detail: I sprayed the first segment darker, laid a small metal grid over it as a mask and did the blue. I used liquid mask for the stripes on a blue-ish base in the second segment and darkened it (on the small doors I used liquid mask as well as a first step) The nozzles were made individually for better handling and masking and I tried to variate the coloration on different "panels" on them.
I began very bright and later blended most parts with thinned black to reduce contrast and get a smoky look. After being satisfied with it, I sealed everything with a thin clear lacquer gloss coat and masked everything up. After having the whole model painted I removed the tape and used a black wash and some white oils for the screws on the nozzle.
It is very important to use paints that don't peel off easily while unmasking and to reduce tape stickiness e.g. by first putting it on your sweaty arm 🙂
I tested that as a first step, otherwise you get a very nasty surprise while "unwrapping" the finished model 😉
2 August 2019, 17:11
Paul Moore
I have a flanker in my stache and I'll d definitely use your technique. Thank you for the detailed explanation.
3 August 2019, 15:18
Paul Moore
One last question Daniel .... What colors did you use for the top and bottom of the aircraft? When I was looking for the right colors for the Chinese Air Force Flanker 35, there seemed to be some question about them. Did you just use your best guess or are you confident of the color selection? That's not questioning your selection, I just don't know. Thanks again. It's a beautiful model you've done!
3 August 2019, 15:24
Daniel
Thanks a lot Paul! really glad to provide some inspiration 🙂
The top color is dark eggplant grey from ak's real colors range, I am pretty sure this is accurate for the newer J-11Bs as well as russian Su-35 or 34. The underside was a guess to match the reference photos, I used a mix of light ghost grey and light grey fs36495, I believe it was around 50/50.
But from the photos I can tell that there are still some shades and variations of these colors on the different jets, so there is also some freedom for the modeler 🙂
3 August 2019, 16:24
Daniel
Many thanks Roland!
4 August 2019, 11:05
Spanjaard
thanks for the detail info!
4 August 2019, 12:23
Paul Moore
Daniel:

Working on my Flanker now. Again, the paint and weathering looks great! My experience in the US Navy was that ordnance was always clean. I would suggest putting missiles on after giving the model a wash to show clean missiles.

Paul Moore

19 March 2020, 21:18
Daniel
Hey Paul! certainly not going to argue with that: I usually apply wash before adding everything that gets in the way when wiping it off. Like flaps, stabs, pylons, weapons, antennas and so on. These receive a seperate wash.
In this case I applied some drops on the base of the weapon fins, mainly not to represent grime, but the shadowy areas that would appear there in 1:1, but dont appear in this scale. But its very easy to get too much of this on a white missile.
Thx for the remark & happy modeling with your Flanker!
20 March 2020, 13:03
Alexander
Wow, what a gorgeous looking model! Really awesome paintwork, both main fuselage and the nozzles! 👍👍
You basically convinced me to build this kit in the future as well - since I plan to do some serious weapon scratch-building for my J-10B I would probably get more chinese weapons than would fit, but now I guess I can just put the rest on another PLAAF model.
26 June 2021, 19:32
Daniel
Thanks a lot Alexander, it's a well fitting, easy to assemble kit, can recommend that. Drawback are the intake FOD grids that are always deployed here, IIRC that is only the case with weight on wheels and engines running. And the decals love to fold up on themselves, even the smallest ones?
29 June 2021, 08:33
Alexander
Good to know these things, will keep an eye out - thanks!
29 June 2021, 08:38
Paul Moore
Alas ...even after all that gouge. Mine is good; but not as nice as yours. Excellent build.
29 June 2021, 19:11
Arif Saeed
Very nice build Daniel ?
29 June 2021, 21:44
Daniel
@paul: thanks again mate, does that mean it gave you trouble?
many thanks arif!
30 June 2021, 17:30
Paul Moore
First, I made mine in-flight. So although it's a nice way to show off the ordnance in a turn, it lost some of the detail. Second, I haven't perfected the engine discoloration that you did so well. Third, after I painted the top the color you recommended, I didn't like it and painted it another color that seemed a better match. After THAT color, I didn't like that one and now I like your color better. Whatever! It looks good and I'm progressing and having fun. But part of the fun for me is of course always improving so I appreciate folks who show their work on Scalemates. It's helps all of us become better.
1 July 2021, 03:49
ZHOU Kun
Very rare to see PLAAF aircraft. Your model catch my eye! Nice build!
6 August 2021, 12:34
Daniel
Many thanks zhou!
Thats true, still a niche topic, but I guess that we'll see a lot of new interesting PLA machinery emerging in the future.
9 August 2021, 20:38

Project info

41 images
1:48
Completed
1:48 PLA J-11B (HobbyBoss 81715)

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