1/48 F-22A Raptor

Start working on the cockpit.
Comparing Legend's resin with the kit's, better detail for the bang seat and cockpit rear. 

Cockpit painted and gloss coated in preparation for the decal. 

And some minor surgeries to remove the kit's front cockpit coaming. 

Cockpit installed 

Opted for a powered up display to add more color and interest. Otherwise this all black modern glass cockpit will look too bland.  

Started on the main weapons bay.. 

.. and the side bays. The pinkish parts are Hasegawa's F-22 Idolmaster parts "redirected" to this build 🙂  

Not quite like the real thing but you got the idea.. 

Side weapons bays, painted, decaled and weathered.  

Weapons bays and main wheel wells glued to the lower fuselage. 

Exhaust painted XF-2 white and weathered with Alclad Jet Exhaust. 

Intakes assembled, painted white and masked for the grey area.  

Fuselage halves glued. There are some gaps on the trailing edge of the wings and around the front area of the fuselage and nose that need to be smoothed out.  

As expected, one trouble area of this kit. I'm going to need a filler on the joint between the intakes and the fuselage.  

Intake gaps filled with milliput and Tamiya white putty and then smoothed out to blend in with the fuselage.  

Comparison of the nose with Hasegawa Raptor (the pink one of course...). Academy's nose is too short and blunt compared with Hasegawa. I read that Academy has now fixed this issue but can't really confirm. My kit is one of the earlier batch when they first released this kit.
Note also the fuselage's surface. Hasegawa's surface texture is too pronounced with panels that probably 1 inch deep in real scale. Academy is better in this regard, albeit with less details and some inconsistent panel lines. 

Comparison with the real one. Academy's nose is too short and blunt compared with the real thing. Hasegawa shape is better overall, although again, the raised surface is too prominent with some details that actually non-existent in the real Raptor, such as the diamond shape on the front top-left panel (or maybe it's there, but Hase magnified this 10 times on their kit..).
But looks like both kits are missing the panel where the pitot attached to in the real jet. Hase's cockpit coaming also got a different fairing shape.  

Another issue of the Academy kit is the short tail fin. Here it is compared with Hasegawa's, which is probably about 20cm taller in real scale. the detail is also better in Hasegawa. The trailing edge of the Academy's fin is also too thick and overscale.  

However, when the tail fin is attached to the fuselage, the difference is not that obvious. I didn't bother doing an exact measurement, but looks like the tail area of Academy's fuselage is thicker than Hasegawa. So perhaps Academy compensate this thicker tail area by shortening the tail fin to ends up with the correct height. 

Painted the trailing edges with a mix of 60% Gunze C314 (FS35622) and 40% C317 (FS36231). The missing panel line is circled red. There are some other inconsistent panel lines of this kit that need to be re-scribed. 

Alclad gloss black primer 

There are several ways to paint a Raptor, but for my Raptor sheen I use a 50:50 mix of SMS US Medium Grey (FS36375) and Mr Color SM204 Super Stainless 2. 

And Mr Color 305 (FS36118), 307 (FS36320) and SM203 (Super Iron 2) with 50:25:25 ratio for the dark grey. 

Being a Cartograf decal, this is a bit disappointing.. I used Mr. Mark Softer for the right one which probably a bit too strong for the decal. The left one is just with Mr. Mark Setter, but the silvering is worse. Next time I will cut and trim the letters, regardless of Cartograf or not..  

The moment when your model can stand on it's own feet ❤️️ 

It's quite a sizeable model. Almost 40cm in length in quarter scale. 

When the missile has more decals than the fighter