Grumman F9F-2 Panther
Looking forward to paint tho totally different colours, gray-white and navy blue... hope I don't mix them too much until painted
PE... I said, let's do some cheapo kit from stash to relax from the Aggressor build...
...boy was I in for a surprise...
PE cut, filed, glued on a greenish interior. Interior study shows both green and gray interiors...
rdy to prime with MrSurfacer 1500
masked with putty, then white Mr Surfacer to make the dials visible... in a small cockpit of a 1/72 😄
time to blacken the white halo around
gluing with Micro Kristal Klear
I was feeling suicidal today, so I painted the buttons instead 😄
tools of the trade... if you are in 1/72 business and work with PE, get that white pencil! It's a lifesaver
ta-da
Not great, not terrible 🙂
Scribing away plastic main gear door
Then cutting it away part by part
PE main gear compartment fitting
Canopy space to get some lead wires 🙂
PE main gear compartment installed
Don't wantt a tail-sitter! Buckshots FTW!
...
Demarking aluminium from air intake colour with AK putty... geez, from close up it looks ugly.
ATU bird is very different, all inside compartments are white while the original blue bird is blue/slime
married wings with body
belly up
now to smaller parts... wheels and airbrakes
Masks... not kibuki... not great, not terrible...
overkill in filler
with acryllic putty
and breaks and doors painted and coated with Gauzy
ATU bird primed with MrSurfacer 1500 white then painted with AK white FS17875
White protected, time for FS16440
Curves masked with Tamiya/Nitto flexi tape
VF-781 bird in the meantime first and only layer of Dark Sea Blue (ANA623) from Hataka lacquer
bottom
close-up, nice smooth finish,would be shame to gloss...
Both birds painted in base
Glazed!
Why use decals when you can paint...
Paint instead of decal, will be nicer I said... will be faster, I said... I forgot about the masking 😄
When masked, first prime!
Then make a parrot out of it 😄
...at this point I was not sorry I used half of my tape stash...
nice!
still nice!
mneeeeehhh
its a close up!
this was hard to mask
but turned out semi OK....
some under-spray happened
fixed!
Primed with black base for polished aluminium, before that, a full day of masking on both birds!! I don't want to see yellow tape for a while...
ready for decaling weekend!
So the ATU bird is done except the cannons, they are waiting for a calm day and steady hand 🙂
Comments
2 9 April 2020, 20:52
Sergej IThanks Dave, I hope the watchmaking suffer is through, really looking forward to paint and weather both. I have Hataka lacquers to test, I've been neglecting them over AK and Gunze so far... 🙂
9 April 2020, 22:54
Sergej ISeriously, I took these two on, to rest a bit, to ruin a 6 Euro kit... then found out both had PE, masks... and it turned out into serious build... Guess I'll rest on my 48th Tamiya Fw190 after these two are on the shelf.
24 April 2020, 21:24
Thomas BischoffSame here - it always starts small🙂
It was worth the masking effort! Great paintjob !
25 April 2020, 15:44
Sergej IThanks Thomas and Bernd. Decaling under way. I am now happy I painted the ATU, decals on blue are bottom of the bottom 🙁 Let's see what Sunday brings, maybe I paint the blue one too...
25 April 2020, 19:21
