I have not done a lot of aircraft lateley,but I took an armor break and plunged into this one.What a well engineered kit with lots of parts but great fit.I was pretty happy with the result.The pictures don't show the camo pattern but it is there.I also used Hawkeye Hobbies Raptor Sheen which mixes with enamel paints and imparts a nice metallic sheen,I would recommend it.thanks to the fantastic Blog by "Keeper of Souls" Justin who provided inspiration and a great guide to follow.Thanks for looking:

Looking good. This kit fits together beautifully, doesn't it?

Yes, the camo gray seem to be too close in tone, though that may be due to the subdued lighting. It may show up better in better lighting, but so far I'm not sold on the Hawkeye Raptor Sheen. I'll be able to get a good look at another finished Raptor model this weekend.

For future reference, the Raptor’s diamond wingtip light lenses should be clear and not colored clear blue or red.

Mike V

Nice work Anthony... One of these days I'll have me one of those...

Good finish you did a great job! Just for future reference the collision lights?the bulbs on the inside are colored the lenses are clear.yours are fine no biggy.

I felt the same way about the tone but those colors are actual references from Lockhead.

Maybe I should explain it a little more clearly:
The wingtip internal bulbs are LED clusters of both clear (anticollison) and tinted LEDs for the formation lights. In scale, the colored LED clusters are hardly visiable and the lens itself is clear with a small foil cap laminated to the inner lens crest.

Mike V

Everybody,thanks for the nice words and suggestions.Justin,thanks again fora great log.

Welcome glad it helped

So the best way of doing the lights is to paint silver behind the clear part, or?

Working on a raptor of my own, and I too was inspired by Justins blog. :-)

/E

I left the lenses clear and put a dot of tamiya clear in each.I painted the sockets chrome silver

Thanks, I'll do that too.

I realized I probably should have painted the intakes before gluing them together. Masking the border between the white and the grey area will be a bit difficult, I believe.

How did you guys do?

Here's a close up shot of the starboard lower wingtip formation/anticollison light, I took in 2006. Hopefully you can see what I was trying to explain.



Mike V

spot on thank you