After two weeks of long struggling to get the fit up and filling up the gaps and sanding and refilling and re-sanding. Things came up to a head and I have a reckoning up my sleeve. I have return those details that I sanded away! Oh, what a sobering thought that was.
Protecting the details as much as I can with the sanding. I used Vallejo putty to reduce the damage and basically its just Felspa dispersed in acrylic binders. So, it can be sanded down by rubbing it with Ethanol! Heh...heh.
After about a week. I am done with the sanding. I glued on the canopy. But the main canopy needed me to cut out a slot in the bulkhead in order to have it opened in the postion that I wanted. There is no provision in the kit on how it is attached. Looked like the guys only wanted it closed but with a stud at the end which they forgotten to engineer the cavity to that stut that that they provided. Nothing cannot be fixed. so, I softened the bulkhead painted with liquid cement and after about 10 mins, I used my OLFA knife and cut a slot where it can sit properly inside. The test fit looks good to me.
Next, I prepared the model for reverse masking to have panel differentiation in tonal quality to it. I elected to paint these panels in white and black.
On went the paint. However, I hated the LED colours of the spray booth, its more blue than white. I had to remove them, even though I paid for them, then use a floor standing lamp to make the colour tones more closer to life. I do like the suction though. Its practically useless with the filter on, So, I removed all 3 layers of filter to have it such the air directly and put the duct outside of the window so that the fumes will be vented away.
The masking removed showing patches in black and white. Then I sprayed on 2 tones of greys to get to cover the areas where the RLMs are supposed to cover.
Then I started highlighting the highlighted area with selective positioning of super highlights, to give the greys a liitle more differentiation given that this model is blessed with hundreds of thousands of rivets. I wanted a background where the rivets has got the chance to shine.
The areas to be covered in RLM Green is arranged with blue tack and Tamiya tape covers the rest of the grays. However, there is one snag, the instruction all have different greens. The box art shows green, the box side shows grey, the instruction painting guide shows brown....what the heck...so, I went to the internet and search and found some old Sabredogs sitting out in the fields and the greens were faded somewhat. So I decided to use green but to tone it in 3 tones to show signs of maintenance.
The greens when on fine with some minor highlighting done with a more yellowing tone.
The leading edges where painted with a lighter tone of grey in order to stand out after we put on the extensions. I wanted it to stand out so that it can show some kind of difference in colour so that the model becomes a little more interesting to look at.
The cockpit walls were differentiated. It shows how the reverse masking has worked where black panels showed up very differently from bare plastic and white panels. So, with the same green, we get 3 colour tones at one go. I also highlighted some of the darker panels with a touch of white.
The same can be observed in at the rest of the plane. I also masked and sprayed on selectively 5% smoke to create panel differentiation even further.
After the smoke goes on in 3 hours of spraying and masking repetitively, the result is thus. Colour modulation, so to speak
One can see clearly that the Sabre is made of different pieces of metal sheets from the modulation using Smoke. As its so thin, some shades in the corners required up to 3 coats. I also made the vertical surfaces darker than the horizontal to give it a more lighted 3D effect.
The end result is quite pleasing and I started to blast the whole model in Gaia gloss and melted down the paint to blend them tones and unify the surfaces using paint retardant and Gunze Thinners.
The tail section was sprayed with Vallejo Burnt Jet Exhaust, then rubbed over with steel, blue and pink AK Enamel Oils. Then its unified by polishing it. Finally protected with a layer of Gaia Gloss.
Next went on the decals and 100 plus stencils. Some chore that I hated.
The decals were melted into the surfaces using paint retarded thinner. The model is coated with 2 layers of Gaia Matt diluted 90% to protect the decals from bruising and Tamiya black line accentuator is used.
The metallic areas were given brown and black washes.
The great clean up. The first round of weathering is not about weathering the plane, its just for bringing out the details that is so rich on the kit surfaces, otherwise it would have been a great waste.
The superb details painted over with Tamiya black panel lines. This is left to dry overnight in order to do my wet removal method that mimics rain marks.
Wet process round one, It provides for grime gathering in the horizontal lines and some streaks.
The model after clean up, looks quite pleasing and the tonal richness is starting to show. Next, I have to weather the bottom and put in the under carriage. In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed this update and have fun making progress with your models.Chow till next update.