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GROUP BUILD ENTRY no.22
Raffle no. 21

1/48 Academy F-14D, VF-31 Tomcatters
by Stephen (F14SRCOOL)
UK

Firstly, here's a view of the nose bit of a blurry pic unfortunately but gives quite a good view of the front end of the jet. Note that the gun vents don't look that great, this is because the kit was actually an Academy A kit converted by cutting the vents in and exchanging ejector seats, engine nozzles and undernose pod with Revell kit.

This pic is a bit clearer and shows some of the weathering i did below the canopy line and you can also get a slight view of the weathering around the area of the engines where NAVY lettering is. You can also of course clearly see how the plane is displayed!

Now a shot of the rear of the aircraft. This pic shows you the good quality of the decals and shows some of the weathering i did on the panel lines.

And finally shot from the back that gives you quite a good view of the whole plane.

Kit was painted with Humbrol colors 145 for upper surfaces, 128 for tails and area below canopy line/before intakes and 127 for undersides. For leading edges Humbrol polished aluminum was used and the metallic gold colour used on engine nozzles was a custom mix of Humbrol metallic colours which cant exactly remember! For formation/landing lights water colours were used. I weathered the kit using weathering chalks. Firstly I would wet the brush and then run it over the colour chalk i wanted and then apply it..

Under cockpit simply used a light brown, and panel lines simply black. Weathering around engines/NAVY lettering was achieved by using a mix of the light brown and black to achieve a oily grimy look. Once weathering was completed kit was varnished with Humbrol matt spray on varnish. I used Yellowhammer Felix in the fight decals which include markings for 105 and 100 black tailed bird. The 100 markings will go on my Hasegawa D. All the decals went on well with no silvering or any problems and I'm really pleased with the way they came out. Once they were on I applied a final coat of Humbrol matt spray on varnish then hung the kit. 

Hope you like the kit.......thanks!

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