I built this as part of the cold war jets campaign. It's the old Monogram 1/72 kit. A pretty quick build as I started last Saturday and had it complete by Wednesday evening. The only thing missing was the Mach 3+ patch for the base. The base was hand painted using an Iwata Custom Micron-B. I love this brush! Anyway, I thought I would share with everybody here who doesn't make it over to the campaign forums. Thanks for looking. "Q"

Stunning Matt. I really like the way you have depicted the panel lines on the aircraft. The large photos I have on my wall of the SR-71 show the varying shades of black very well and you have captured it superbly. Excellent work.
All the best.
tim

Thanks for the kudos Tim, much appreciated. I have a NASA bird planned at some point. Thanks again, "Q"

Looks really good. Tell us more about your "shading" technique.

Thanks Mark. The shading was actually really easy. I used Tamiya tape and a business card. Tamiya tape was laid down along the front edge of the panel lines that ran across the plane. I used the business card as a hand held template where the front to rear panel lines intersected with the tape. I mixed up a really thin batch of Tamiya Panzer Dark Gray cut with lacquer thinner then held the airbrush at about a 10 degree angle to the surface and sprayed the rear edge of the tape working from the rear of the plane forward to avoid any shadowing on the other pieces of tape. As I finished shooting along one piece of tape, I would remove it for the same reason. I kept at it until I had all the panel lines shaded along their rear edges. I made a quick light pass over the entire thing with some thinned down black to tie it all together. Clear coat and decals as normal. Hope that helps. "Q"

Ton of Knowledge in there, it may take me a while to parse it all out.

I'm actually writing a how-to article on it that should be posted soon. It has pictures that show the method a lot better than I can describe it. "Q"

I was rewarded with a second place at a local contest this past week end for my efforts on this thing. Didn't expect that. "Q"

Well done Matt
All the best.
tim

Matt, jets don't usually don't interest me too much, but your model is superb!

The shading is very nicely done (I'm going to try something similar as a pre-shading technique on my next model), and the pilots look awesome for 1/72! The base is great- I may steal the idea, if I can improve my airbrushing...

Thanks for the kudos Tim and Ben, much appreciated. Good luck with that next project Ben. I'd be interested to see how it comes out. What is the subject going to be? Thanks again, "Q"

It's this Revell/MDC Typhoon build in 1:32 that I will try "directional pre-shading" on- as I have read so much criticism of conventional pre-shading (and I am starting to agree with some of the arguments)- not all panels on an aircraft are going to brighter in the middle.... With it being 1/32, there is more scope for masking the panels to achieve an effect like on your SR-71. I'll mix up techniques- some normal preshading too, and some 'inverse preshading' with white on the access panels (making the edges of the panels lighter), as I think this is visible in some photos.

Quite a project you have there Ben, but it looks good. Hope the painting works out well for you. Looking forward to see how it goes. "Q"

Wooooooooooow!!! That's fantastic!


Cheers Nick