Chengdu type J-10B, China air force.

Cuajete
I think I haven't ever seen one of these built before. Looks great. Following!

Simon Nagorsnik
Nice progress my firend!
I like what I see so far🙂
For sur, follow with interest

Robin (WhiteGlint)
Watching 👀
Promising start

Chan Li
Thanks dudes!

Maciej Bellos
Looking good!

Chan Li
Thanks Maciej! Working for a better finish.

Maciej Bellos
Looking forward to it. I have the 48th scale but it will take me some time to start it, i have quite a few kits before that.

Chan Li
Ugh, the 48 scale has more details, just never thought this product could appear in foreign market,😎

Maciej Bellos
Yes it does! Seems a nice kit with lots of missiles.

So far there is only one operator, hopefully by the time I get on with it, there will be more.

Which colours did you use?

Harald Besold
The cockpit looks very good. The plane is also very nicely painted. Looks great!

Chan Li
thanks Harald, I hope the final finish could be better.

Chan Li
@Maciej, for upper side I used a mixture Tamiya xf-2 :3 + xf-66 :1, it's an alternative 'of Gunze Mr. Color C-307, for lower side I used Tamiya xf-19, you can also use Mr. Color C-308. I only have experience of these two paint makers. I think this would most closely reproduce the look of real plane.
The paint suggestion on the manual in the kit were not correct.
The missiles in kit also were 15 years ago, but it doesn't really matter.

Robin (WhiteGlint)
@Maciej, If you want it to fly in another nation's service you can always just "what-if" it. 😉
Besides PLAAF there is only Pakistan right now operating the J-10.

Cuajete
Very nice result. Congrats!

Chan Li
Thanks Cuajete, I still am confused about taking photos, none of these pics reproduced the real color I actually painted.

Cuajete
Chan Li, try it with a blue background and natural light. Maybe it looks better.

Vincent
Very nice, great work on the gray scheme. It's not easy to make that interesting.

Chan Li
Thanks Vincent, I'm not satisfied with the photos though.

Harvey H.W.
👍 白平衡偏了，手机调手动模式试试？还有就是检查一下灯光的色温是不是正常。
话说这套组合如何啊？

Chan Li
谢谢！周末再摸索一下；
大件组合都没啥问题，比老版强多了。总体有几个坑：瞄准镜不修低无法关闭仓盖、起落架组合差、进气口有大缝、雷达罩有缺损（水口位置原因）、图纸提供的打孔位置不对。
优点：钉线丰富水贴足，弹药足，这款的塑料质量不错。
缺点：无吊仓无复合挂架无制导炸弹无pl15。

Harvey H.W.
看来是号手正常水平 🙂

Chan Li
对呀，主要还是因为没得选😑

Ben M
The experiment with the pencil went great. You added a lot of interest to the plain scheme.

Łukasz Gliński
Very nice J-10. Pencil turned out great 👍

Chan Li
@Ben @Lukas, thanks for encouraging comments.
Now the pencil method can be optional for me whenever I don't want to dirty the panel too much.
The pencil I used was 2B.

Simon Nagorsnik
Really like how your paint job turns out!
@Chan:Can you tell me something about your pencil method?
At some point I would like to make a jet again, but I just lack the "flow" for aviators.
(My Horten was a hard piece of work for me;))
So I need to learn a little more about this topic.
Like the way how you doing, so you might be the one for some inspiration🙂

Chan Li
@Simon, if I could I can tell you all I know about building jets, just afraid I'm not that matured modeler so far.
I saw your Horten, it was way nice and I can judge that your skills are more than sufficient to paint either jets or propeller planes.
Personally I always have accidents of applying decals. Maybe we can exchange experience to improve it.

If I may, think I can share some experience about applying decals. In general, I always apply some decal softer (proper amount, neither too much nor too little) to the surface of plane, and then apply the decals, this would minimize the bubbles or any kind of unfitness. On the other hand, I tried apply the softer on back of decals first and then apply them to plane surface but it won't lead a perfect set finally, I dunno why.
Some of the decals with the original kit have useless outer edge (sorry I can't find a better explanation), cut them off will lead a better performance. This is important when the surface is not flat or smooth, especially for the control panel and such.
Sometimes cover the decals with gloss or semigloss clear paint can eliminate the shine of some decals, some decals on jets, like the maintenance logo "no step", must contains some clear edge or such no matter what, apply a layer of clear paint can somewhat fix it.
Another thing is, some weathering could be done after decals, would enhance the look (or I shall say equal the look). If you painted a layer of clear paint over the decals normally they're tough enough for most weathering scratches.
The best decals I used are made by Italian manufacturer called "cartograph" I think you may already know this. The only bad thing of them is the price. I would always prefer to buy kits originally offering good decals. Since it's a big part of jets made.

Chan Li
@Simon, the pencil method is easy. So if you don't want to dirty the surface of your plane (as many jets are well maintained) can use mechanical pencil to enhance the panel line, I used darker type graphite 2B, 0.2 or 0.e diameter. Because pencil won't leak, and 2B graphite is soft and dark and can be erased too. It's just one of the choices.

Chan Li
0.3*

Simon Nagorsnik
I really thank you for your remarks!
I'm going to buy a cheap kit where I can try something around to see how the pen works.
Actually I never really had problems with decals (our methods match) only this project was the horror for me.
This time I blame the decals...;)

But there is still enough time to try it and otherwise I will contact you 🙂

Something else: would be happy to see an F104 Starfighter from you😁
I think this one has a wonderful design.....

Neuling
Interesting, Chan Li!

Chan Li
@Neuling, good words from a master are always encouraging.

Chan Li
@Simon, haha, I see. Just hopefully I wasn't nagging too much. I used to hand paint a F-5E give shark in 2020, the first year I started to build models. See if I could find a promising kit over here, the F-104 series do have beautiful bodies.

Chan Li
Tiger shark*

Simon Nagorsnik
Chan: Nagging too much?! - never 😁
It is always good to exchange ideas and if you see yourself confirmed it is all the better!
Painting surfaces evenly with a brush is really an art- god save the airbrush! 🤣🤣

Chan Li
Simon: I ordered another f-5e kit and I will post the hand painted one with it(once complete) , the only choice of 1/72 scale f-104 is from revell, I think you may have realized this is a brand which is hard to get over here.
The f-5 has similar aero design to f-104.

Yifei Li
Nice work!
btw, J-10 made its maiden flight in 1998, not 2009 lol (assuming you are talking about the prototype 1001)

Neuling
Top result!

Chan Li
@Yifei, thanks for encouragement, I can't recall what I referred, probably it was type 10B, cuz the info was from Bing or baidu… more to the point, I am not a true military fan😂

Chan Li
@Neuling, I'm way pleased that you commended my work, your work is perfect as a master.

Simon Nagorsnik
Great work from you!, the shades look wonderful again 👏

Chan Li
Thank you Simon, the other day I showed your MAZ diorama to my friends here and they said "niu-bi" in Chinese, which equals to "badass" in English.

Alexander
Great looking dragon! 👍
I have one myself in 48 and I am more and more tempted to build it soon when I see the recently completed models of this plane. But well, so many models, so few time. 😄

Chan Li
Hi, Alexander. Build it.
Once you start I will follow your build, the 48 scale has more details and I'm sure it would be a brilliant result in your hands.

Nathan Dempsey
Beautiful build Chan Li. I hope my 1/48 kit looks as nice when I finish it.

Chan Li
Thanks Nathan!
I'm sure your build of the 1/48 scale will be nicer than this.