I took the several days of rainy holidays to catch up with my work on the Tomcat which has been left on the table for 2 weeks.
I took time out to paint the under carriage parts on the trees and hand painted the red sections on the air brakes, undercarriage door edges.
I also took time to paint the undercarriage doors in Tamiya X18 followed by Gull Grey and Lt Gull Grey of my own concoction from Mr. Hobby Colours.
The areas where the underwind Kevlar reinforce bladders are painted black and drybrushed with light grey and Desert Sand to mimic pictures I have on my reference books and taking time to ensure modulation of lightness of tones to highlights its uneven surfaces.
The greys where painted in as well as the tails and exhaust safety lines. The models was given a coat of Johnson Klear and then washed with Tamiya Burnt Sienna and Black Weathering Washes. Streaked off with cotton clothe moistened with some Tamiya Enamel Thinner (blue cap) after setting aside to dry for 6 hours.
Some paint patches are sprayed on with lightened gull grey and some had panel lines masked to accentuate the difference between old paint on panels with new removed panels that were painted separately away from the airframe. This is to create some interesting tonal subtleties.
In masking, the old decals from Hasegawa on the aircraft walkways were peeled off when unmasking. Thereby, there arise a need to repaint the whole rubber walkways that are anti slip surfaces. The rectangles are masked off and painted Tamiya X18 and then dabbed with sponge methods using 2 lighter tones of the same. Making the joint lines and painted with light gull grey. These will later be subdued with washes and weathering in that area.
The corners of the canopy glass areas were masked with 1.8mm diameter masking punched tape that I happened in Melbourne recently from Victoria Hobby Centre. These where joined with 1.5mm Tamiya type of tape from Hobby Point and the rest covered with good old trusty Tamiya tapes. Then the areas are painted black. The interior hooks and mirrors are added and hand painted with Vallejo black. But to increase adhesion of Acrylic paints to metal, I sanded the photo etched parts with Fine Tamiya Sanding Sponges.
During the weathering, the pre finished wings were attached on dry mode to compare the tonal differences and to guide the weathering process of the fuselage from the wings.
As the wings has more working surfaces and oil leakages on them compared to the fixed fuselage, there must be tonal differences between the two but subtle. The above is too drastic and more brown has to be added to the main body.
Another view of the pre balanced fuselage
More browns were added to bring the fuselage shades of grey nearer to the pre finished wings.
Almost there, quite happy with the tonal turnout. Now the painting to be done and tonal of the airbrakes areas to begin.
Balanced tones with very subtle shading differences to differentiate the wings from the fuselage.
Since I am now happy with the work of the leading edges and wings matching closely to the fuselage, I now work on finishing the undercarriage area with exposure of the gun area, ladder, canopy and ejection seats. Update will be done in a week or two once I am back from my business trip.
Happy New Year Everyone.