u/Charlie3PO

Tamiya 1/72 F-35A + AIM-260

The kit was completed a short while ago now, but the AIM-260 has now been added to create a mini diorama.

The kit: Tamiya F-35A in 1/72 scale, with after market RAAF decals. The fit and mould accuracy of the kit were spot on, but the kit's decals were pretty rubbish, very thick and prone to silvering.

The kit was painted with Tamiya spray cans. In absence of an airbrush to apply a more realistic HAVE GLASS colour scheme, I sprayed the whole model in a single colour, then used a semi-gloss coat to simulate the reflective sheen the real thing has. Other areas are flat coated. Once sealed with the appropriate clear coat, I then crushed up some of a standard grey lead pencil and lightly brushed it only on the semi-gloss areas. I then brushed it off and repeated a few more times, which has the effect of 'staining' the paint. This gave a slightly darker colour with a little variation and added a tiny bit of metallic sheen (which isn't really visible in the photos unfortunately)

The AIM-260 was made from an old 1/72 AIM-120B I had lying around. I made a few last year based on the low resolution renderings which had been floating around for a while. When actual images of the real thing finally emerged earlier this year, I was pleasantly surprised that it was fairly close to what I'd made, although I did end up making a slight adjustment to the shape of the fins.

The AIM-260 is glued to a piece of heated and stretched clear sprue from another kit. It was then painted to reflect the rocket exhaust with shock cones. I'm pretty happy with the result.

Given the Tamiya 1/72 F-35A kit has no options for the weapon bays open, I opted to mount the missile below and ahead of the aircraft. This was to simulate that enough time had lapsed that the weapon bay doors have already rapidly closed following the release of the weapon. It's probably still too close, but it's the best I can do.

Hope you like it.

This is the smallest kit I've ever constructed. I must say I'm impressed with Revell's mold, even at 1/144 scale, it still has a more accurate overall shape than most other Eurofighter models on the market, even ones at bigger scale. The level of detail is also fantastic for the scale.

Unfortunately what the kit had in terms of accuracy, it lacked in quality control. I ordered two kits and both had a canopy defect where the left side was too thin, the surface was bubbly and there was considerable flash. Given both had the same defect and I could see the defect in other photos of the same kit online, I opted not to contact Revell for a replacement, as it'd likely have the same defect.

The fix was to build up layers of decanted Tamiya Clear Lacquer spray with a brush. Gave it over a week to cure then sanded and polished to a smooth finish, or at least the best I could do at that scale.

The rest of the build was straight forward. Opted for a Luftwaffe variant with an Air-to-air load out consisting of 2 x IRIS-T and 4 x Meteor BVRAAM.

The main colour is actually Tamiya light ghost grey from the spray can, I found it worked quite well with its blue tinge. Brown and yellow stripes on the missiles were hand painted.

The pilot figure is made out of blue-tack, coated in a layer of superglue so it would hold its shape, then painted.

The stand is scratch built with sprue and plastic sheet.

Hope you like it.

The kit was completed a little while ago now, but the AIM-260 has now been added to create a mini diorama.

The kit: Tamiya F-35A in 1/72 scale, with after market RAAF decals. The fit and mould accuracy of the kit were spot on, but the kit's decals were pretty rubbish, very thick and prone to silvering.

The kit was painted with Tamiya spray cans. In absence of an airbrush to apply a more realistic HAVE GLASS colour scheme, I sprayed the whole model in a single colour, then used a semi-gloss coat to simulate the reflective sheen the real thing has. Other areas are flat coated. Once sealed with the appropriate clear coat, I then crushed up some of a standard grey lead pencil and lightly brushed it only on the semi-gloss areas. I then brushed it off and repeated a few more times, which has the effect of 'staining' the paint. This gave a slightly darker colour with a little variation and added a tiny bit of metallic sheen.

The AIM-260 was made from an old 1/72 AIM-120B I had lying around. I made a few last year based on the low resolution renderings which had been floating around for a while. When actual images of the real thing finally emerged earlier this year, I was pleasantly surprised that it was fairly close to what I'd made, although I did end up making a slight adjustment to the shape of the fins.

The AIM-260 is glued to a piece of heated and stretched clear sprue from another kit. It was then painted to reflect the rocket exhaust with shock cones. I'm pretty happy with the result.

Given the Tamiya 1/72 F-35A kit has no options for the weapon bays open, I opted to mount the missile below and ahead of the aircraft. This was to simulate that enough time had lapsed that the weapon bay doors have already rapidly closed following the release of the weapon.

Hope you like it.

Apparently my favorite part about this hobby is destroying the re-sale value of my diecast models, very few are un-modified. Here are some photos of my latest project, a heavily modified and weathered Hobby master SU-30MKM. Safe to say the re-sale value is completely destroyed, but overall I'm very happy with it.

Mods:

Added a slightly raised bulge around the nose, in line with the IRST. The base mould has a slight bulge around the base of the IRST pod, but it's much too small. The real machine shows a raised bulge that extends around the whole upper half of the nose, extending from the AAR probe on the left, to well below the IRST on the right side. Layers of paint were built up to add this bulge, it's not really visible in the photos.

The wings were heavily modified. The HM SU-30 mould has a distinct curve on the forward half of the upper surface of the wings, with the rear half being almost flat. On the mould, the peak wing thickness occurs near the front of the wing, about 1/4 back from the leading edge. However, the real aircraft has a near continuous curve across the upper surface of the wing, with peak thickness being close to the middle of the wing. I spent hours sanding down the whole upper, forward surface of each wing to flatten the curve, then repainted the forward half of the wings. I lost some panel line detail, but I'm ok with that because to me, having the correct basic shape is more important that the panel lines.

The upper surface of the wing's leading edge high lift devices were also sanded and shaped to get rid of the concave look the mould has.

The wingtip R73's were replaced with aftermarket ECM pods

Aftermarket R-77s were added under each wing.

The cockpit interior panels were painted grey.

Heavy weathering was applied to various panels to help the slightly off colour paint on the wings blend in.

I will continue tweaking it over time, particularly with weathering on the forward fuselage to match the heavily weathers wings. For now I'm taking a break though.

Apparently my favorite part about this hobby is destroying the re-sale value of my diecast models, very few are un-modified. Here are some photos of my latest project, a heavily modified and weathered SU-30MKM. Safe to say the re-sale value is completely destroyed, but overall I'm very happy with it.

Mods:

Added a slightly raised bulge around the nose, in line with the IRST. The base mould has a slight bulge around the base of the IRST pod, but it's much too small. The real machine shows a raised bulge that extends around the whole upper half of the nose, extending from the AAR probe on the left, to well below the IRST on the right side. Layers of paint were built up to add this bulge, it's not really visible in the photos.

The wings were heavily modified. The HM SU-30 mould has a distinct curve on the forward half of the upper surface of the wings, with the rear half being almost flat. On the mould, the peak wing thickness occurs near the front of the wing, about 1/4 back from the leading edge. However, the real aircraft has a near continuous curve across the upper surface of the wing, with peak thickness being close to the middle of the wing. I spent hours sanding down the whole upper, forward surface of each wing to flatten the curve, then repainted the forward half of the wings. I lost some panel line detail, but I'm ok with that because to me, having the correct basic shape is more important that the panel lines.

The upper surface of the wing's leading edge high lift devices were also sanded and shaped to get rid of the concave look the mould has.

The wingtip R73's were replaced with aftermarket ECM pods

Aftermarket R-77s were added under each wing.

The cockpit interior panels were painted grey.

Heavy weathering was applied to various panels to help the slightly off colour paint on the wings blend in.

I might continue tweaking it over time, particularly with weathering on the forward fuselage to match the heavily weathers wings. But for the moment, I'm taking a break.