All right, here goes.
I'm looking for constructive criticism on my latest model... (and hoping not to be scarred for life from it... ) The pictures of my Corsair are in "Yoda's Hut" right here. The better pictures will be on the second page until I reorganize my album.
I'll upload pictures of the wing assembly and landing gear in a day or two. This topic will be updated when that happens. Off I go now, to start airbrushing!





YodaMan

Yoda, One bit of criticism.. Its better than MY last aircraft cockpit! Keep it up, it looks awesome so far!

To start with I am very impressed. Nothing jumped out at me as a mistake. Since your looking for some feedback I will let you know what I saw after closer inspection (it still looked great under closer inspection). One thing I saw was a seem line on the chair. Now this may be correct and I don't know, but since I saw it I thought I would point it out. If it is suppose to be there just ignore me. It also looks like there is a little green paint on the head rest in the first picture, maybe scrap it off with a toothpick or something the re-paint if that doesn't work. One thing I really like is the wear on the buttons/switches/etc. This should also be done to the to seat and foot pedals in the same fasion in the places that would get wear and tear.

If you could do me a little favor I would love to know which kit this is and what after market products you used if any. Thanks and keep up the great work.

Thanks Andrew! :-)
I vaguely remember thinking about the seam on the chair during counstruction, and I don't know whay I left it. I guess I didn't think it looked out of place... but now I don't think there's a way I can remove it without ripping apart the cockpit... I'll see what I can do. Thanks for pointing it out! I'd forgotten about it completely!
"It also looks like there is a little green paint on the head rest in the first picture"
That was a tricky little area to paint. The curve of the cushon made it hard to mask off... I thought I touched it up pretty good, but it looks like I missed a little area.
Thanks for the feedback - it helps! :-)

YodaMan
PS - Jim, did you use the IMG code to make the pics appear in the post? I though you couldn't do that with photos from MSN galleries? Maybe I'm thinking of something else...

YM,
You can with MSN. The URL for the image is so long that some of it is being obscured on the properties window. Just click on that area (hold down) and scroll down. Then you'll see the whole URL.

Jim

Yoda,

You may try to hide the seam line by scratch building a parachute pack and place it in the seat pan with the straps dangling over the side of the cockpit etc. Just a thought.

I concur with Andrew on the need to add some wear to the seat and footpedals. On mine I used a silver gel pen to add some scratches and wear marks. Also, to do some wear on the side control panels you might want to drybrush using the basecoat with a little white added in to simulate some worn paint and then follow that up with a small scratch here in there with the gel pen.

So, how scuffed up do the footpedals typically get? I knew that they would show wear, but I didn't know what the best way was to replicate that. Would just the raised areas and edges show metal? On the seat would it be the raised areas that are worn?
(as a side note, I think it wouldn't be too comfy to fly a combat airplane with a rigid metal seat.... especially after it's been sitting on a sunny tarmac a few hours. Yikes! Gives new meaning to the term 'hotseat'! )
Also, I managed to scrape the seams off of the seat. That looks much better now!

YodaMan
Go Pack!

Your right Jabba....er, I mean Yoda...raised detail would see the wear first. On both the seat and the pedals I'd start by hitting some rivets and some edges (corners) with a gel pen or whatever your going to use for the worm areas. Don't overdue it because it won't look realistic if you do too much although you could go back and fix it. Be sure to hit a little bit of the forward edge of the seat where the back of the legs rest. I try to think of myself getting into/out of the seat and where spots of wear and tear would develope. Also, don't forget that any dirt or mud that's on the pilots book when he gets in the plane will start to build-up on the foot pedals over time.

As far as the metal seat and comfort is concerned I figure that the pilots or crews would make their own field modifications to the seat either authorized or not. I figure that they might at least throw a cushion in the bottom or something but I haven't seen any documentation or pics on this.

As far as sitting on metal seats go, remember that the pilots had their parachutes strapped to their posteriors and as such sat ON their chutes during flight. Thats why those metal seats are deep 'bucket seats' so as to accomidate the depth of the parachutes. :-)

Ted, your absolutely right...thanks for reminding us.

There's a lot of detail there, Yoda. Those straps really do the trick. Nice paint job, too. The force is trong in this one !

Great work on that interior. What kind of camera and lens combo did you use for those photos? Instead of siver pencil for the seat wear, try pencil lead. It leaves a more worn metal appearance and can be buffed for more shine. It really looks like weathered & worn metal & paint. back at ya

Yoda, You have gotten some good tips from this post. From what I remember back to my
A-6 Intruder days, the wear on the foot pedals/troughs and cockpit depended on the aircraft's age and whether it was newly re-worked at SIDLM or not. Try taking a scale pilot and place him in the seat with his feet on the pedals. Then figure what part of the pedals will get the most wear etc and go from there. Try to match the wear inside with the wear outside. Remember to give the cockpit and canopy edges a bit of scrape too.HTH! LOOKING GOOD SHIPMATE!!!!!

I used a FujiFilm FinePix 2800 zoom. A nice digital camera with a good macro mode. You can find a review of the camera here.

I have gotten lots of good and helpful feedback thus far. I thank you for that. However, I've decided to save the more worn cockpit look for the next model... I tried drybrushing some silver... too much paint was on the brush... that created a mess... had to carefully brushpaint the seat, and add some black wash to even it out...
I guess you could say I stuck to the advice of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!" :-)
I'll do more wear on the next aircraft. (probably Hasegawa's 1/48 Bf-109 G-14)

As a progress report, I've glued the fuselage halves together; the wing sub-assembly is glued together and primed; the engine is painted; and some minor seams and gaps have been filled with Squadron putty. Sanding shall commence ASAP!

On a side note: Future is a great way to fill minor sanding scratches. After wet-sanding, brush a little future over the area sanded, let that cure and then paint. You can't see any scratches! :-) Ya gotta love that Future!

YodaMan

Good Job YodaMan! One thing on the weathering, keep in mind the material that the original was made from when you work on bare metal. Magnesium, Aluminum and steel will have different tones and reflectivity. I know that the wheels were cast Magnesium, and with the seat assembly being attached directly to the airframe, would most likely be Aluminum to prevent galvanic corrosion

PHOTO UPDATE!!!!
In this series, I show the area where the wing joins the fuselage. The first two photos were taken before I applied putty, the other two after.








If it dosen't look like there was much of a gap to begin with, well, there's no gap now!!!
To fill the gap, I used the putty + nail polish remover trick. This method works well, but I've got a few tips:
-Work in a very well ventilated area! Putty and nail polish remover together create a lot of unhealthy fumes!!!
-If you can, use this method before any paint is applied! As you can see, the nail polish remover just stripped the acrylic paint off!, creating a big mess!
-this is a good method to use if you are working around areas where you don't want to sand any details off...

Here is a pic of my Corsair as it looks, glued together. (was taken before I filled the gaps by the wings)


YodaMan