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GROUP BUILD ENTRY no.3
Raffle no. 3

1/48 RoG XX-4 Black Bunny
by David Bey
Singapore

This is a 1/48 RoG Black Bunny, VX-4 'Vandy One' BuNo159853 from Point Mugu circa early 90's

Used a True Details cockpit purchased from Squadron, should have done a bit more sanding, because the fit wasn't that accurate (or like a glove, as someone said). Good detail all around though. I also used a bit of an airwaves photo-etched set meant for Italeri, but works here as well to bring the gun vents to grills and adding mirrors to the canopy, plus canopy rails.

Everything else is out of the box, I have yet to add one lone sidewinder and the arresting hook. Decals went on nicely, though the white decals are a bit translucent. I painted the phoenix pallets and sidewinder rails gray because i saw them painted this way in a few photos, thought it looked cool to break up the monotony of the paint scheme. did some pre-shading on them too  Finished in semi gloss, only the pallets, missile rails and engine areas are flat.

The most important part of this model is to test outs something I thought of for seamless intakes

First I pre-painted the other colour in the intake. in this case, it was black.

I took a piece of paper, rolled it up, glued it to the base of the intakes and the fan face, put the top on, burnished it down and made the necessary creases to make it stay in shape, then drew with a pencil where the white part of intake would end. i then took out the top, cut the areas out, applied Elmer's glue, and put back the top, burnished the white paper down and let it dry. with careful application i was able to put the end of the white paper at the square corner of the
intake, so it's not easily noticed.

I then applied putty to the seams not covered by the paper, took off the excess with nail polish remover, polished it a bit carefully with 1200 grit and 2000 grit paper, and used a brush to touch up the rest of the paint.

Took me something like 30 mins (minus waiting time for putty to dry) , no sanding involved. give it shot! i like the look, as no one really stares into the intakes, but when they do, they don't notice the paper and think it's really plastic. No hard areas to reach when sanding!

What's more, you can pre-weather the inside of the intake first as a flat piece of paper before putting it in...

You can see the results from the photo.

Hope you like the build!

Copyright 2005 by David Bey

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