Ok, so here is our thread.
The participants are:
Newtothegame, building a Ki-84 Hayate
Winters1, building a Zero
VonCuda, building a P-38J Lightning

Here is my P-38J entry as it appeared as of 1 hour ago.



So, with any luck, my two opponents will build their planes on time and quickly be shot down by my superior machine.......that is, if they ain't scared. :-)

How funny. We must have been posting at the same time and both created a thread - wierd! I'll move my info from the other thread over to this one.
Leon

Here we go. Adding on to this thread and will delete the other one...


For this duel, in which I am teamed with winters1 against VonCuda (poor guy doesn't stand a chance), I'll be building hasegawa's 1/48 ki-84 frank. Here's a picture of the items.



As you can see, I also have the eduard pe set, true detail wheels (which I'm not sure yet if I'll use) and aeromaster decals. The PE set looks great and I have started to pull things out and put things together - I think the improved seat alone make it worth it. I also have a set of pre-painted seatbelts which I'll add.

My original plan was to do the home defense markings (#16 with the bird), but I notice it looks like the decals are off register, so I might try to skip the decals and mask it myself. If I do that I will go with the same units markings, but the plane that had no bird, and instead an antelope(?) on the side of the fuselage (Like the Tamiya Frank box art).

Anyway, there are some decisions to make along the way, but the kit looks great, and I am really excited to get some good work done on it.

Leon

You have much to learn Grasshopper..............


I also have the eduard pe set, true detail wheels (which I'm not sure yet if I'll use) and aeromaster decals. The PE set looks great and I have started to pull things out and put things together - I think the improved seat alone make it worth it. I also have a set of pre-painted seatbelts which I'll add.


Eduard PE set: Useless decorations...pretty, but useless
Resin Wheels: Wheels aren't required for a crash landing.
Aeromaster decals: Which will melt as your plane burns during it's nose dive to earth.
Pre-painted seatbelts: Return them to the hobby store. A better use of your money would be a good parachute.

I like you Leon......I really like you man. However, this is war, and in war the weak (Ki-84) must die. I may consider giving you the option of dying by .50 cal machine gun fire or by one of my 8...count them...8 underwing rockets. :-) :-)

Well Mr. VonCuda, The frank is starting to take shape. I know you are probably shaking in your boots. I can't blame you. It's going to be one mean, tough bird.

Anyway, here is some of my progress. Cockpit done. As mentioned I used elements from the eduard pe set (love the seat) and colored pe belts, which I think look really sharp. I know there is debate over the frank's cockpit colors - aotake, greenish, metal, so I went with metal color and a wash of pollyscale grimy black. Overall I am really happy with it, but after seeing the pictures, think I went overboard with the red knobs. I was completely unsure on those colors and may change it, but it does add some color to the pit.







Comments welcome / encouraged from all.

Looking forward to your progress or Winters1 progress.
Leon

Leon,
that cockpit looks sweet! The black wash is a really sets off the surroundings without drawing too much attention. I can never get my washes to turn out that way. The seat and instrument panel look awsome as do all the other details you've added.
I wouldn't worry too much about going overboard with the red knobs though. It's all going to end up black and melted. :-)

I haven't heard from Winters1. I hope he's still planning on joining us. One Japanese fighter plane won't be much of a challenge against the ol' Lightning.

Very nice cockpit. These duels are turning into some really interesting builds.

Thanks guys for the comments; I appreciate it.

Hermon, my luck with washes seems to really be hit or miss, but on this one, it seemed to work pretty well. I think the silver is such a glossy surface that the wash really responds the way it is supposed to.

I hope all is well.
Leon

Well I've managed to make some progress on the Lightning. Sorry, no pic's of the cockpit. It's pretty basic anyways.....no airconditioning, CD player, leather seats, etc. My machine was made for killing Ki-84's and the original owner wasn't interrested in fancy add on's. :-)
Up to this point it has been a real pain in the neck. None of the fuselage parts fit together particularly well and many of the joints and seams required lots of filler. I'm hoping I can get all the sanding and polishing in order since this will be a NMF build. Here is a pic of where I stand now, and one of what the finished product will hopefully look like.

Newtothegame your cockpit really is beautiful, however I can't help rooting for Voncuda and his Lightning. I've always had a fondness for the "Forktail Devil".


Sorry, Excuse my ignorance but what's an NMF build?
Any reason you chose that kit over the other P-38's out there? (I do love the nose art on yours)

Looks great Hermon. Sorry to hear that it is somewhat of a bear of a kit. I do hope in the end it all comes out ok. (I too love the nose art!)

David, Thanks for the comment on the cockpit. Don't worry about rooting for the lightning; Hermon'll need all the help he can get :-) .

Leon

David,
NMF is "Natural Metal Finish", as with many P-51 Mustangs, P-38 Lightnings, quite a few P-47 Thunderbolts. Basically it's the plain sheet metal without any paint.
As for why I chose this kit, well, as you said, I loved the nose art as well. There aren't many military model kits out there with bright blue markings and half naked ladies painted on the nose. :-)



Ah.....again you show your inexperience in the ways of the world young grasshopper. The only way you're winning this duel is if my Lightning doesn't show up.
Logic dictates that no plane in the world with a stupid antelope painted on the fuselage will ever shoot down a plane sporting a half naked chick on the nose. :-)

(image from http://www.aviationart.nl/Nakajima_KI-84_Hayate.jpg)

Be Afraid. Be VERY Afraid...

Leon

AHHH! You are truly a man after my own heart.
And if they touch the nose art, I'm sending in back up :-) :-)

Baby Steps forward...

Engine:


Kit part + PE wiring (Nice, quick and easy)

Instrument Panel / Cockpit closed:


Now for the dreaded joining of fuselage and seam cleanup. This will probably take me awhile as I usually put it off like crazy.

Hope all is well.
Leon

I hope you have the decals for plane 16. The tail looks really cool.

I do have decals for #16, but am struggling with the decision to use them or not. They are printed slightly off (white doesn't line up perfectly with red and green will show through. I might just use them as it is one of my favorite markings, or I know there is a company that makes masks for that plane which would allow me to paint it on myself for even more realism, or I might just go with #24 one that I could just mask myself. Either way I really like the markings of this 'group' Of course there's no bikini girl like on Hermon's but you can't win them all...

Leon

Well, I finally have my frank all closed up, cleaned up, and primered. I decided to try using floquil old silver as the primer, so I can chip away some of the paint. I am hoping that this isn't a mistake and that I wont find that huge amounts of paint come off where I don't want them to come off. Especially since I plan on masking and painting most of the markings. The practice I did seems to be pretty stable now and has resisted more 'chipping' after the initial run.

Here is a picture of the silver primered bird. BTW, I am really hopeful that this does work. The old silver would be a great primer to always use (made it very nice and easy to find mistakes, fix, and then recheck with another coat)
Primed:


So anyway, with the chipping, I did some practice, and, yes, went way overboard with the practice. I like the effect, but hope that I am able to control it and end up with say 1/2 of what my practice was. I put on some liquid mask, painted the main color (at that time I only had ijn green, so the frank will be different), faded it, chipped it with masking tape, and then post shaded with some black. I'm still working on perfecting the post shading (hard to not go overboard...) Please give comments. I am really enjoying the frank and a little afraid I will do the weathering / chipping and end up having disaster strike!
Practice on testors corsair:


I hope all is well, and look forward to any comments.

PS (Hermon) How's the p-38 coming?

Leon

Sorry for dragging my feet Leon.
I started a new job Monday and my time is even more limited now than before. I actually haven't touched my P-38 since the last update pictures. I'm trying to get my Suez Stripes entry all wrapped up so that hopefully I can get serious about the duel again.

One campaign down (almost).........
6 more to go!!

I know what you are saying. I have four builds going right now. I end up getting excited about one and doing a week's worth of work or so on it, and then the momentum slows, and it gets put aside. I am really trying to finish these four, so that I can switch back to a one (or two at most) at a time method. Group builds / campaigns are just so tempting and easy to sign up for and not quite as easy to complete...

Anyway, don't feel bad in any way. Even if you don't touch yours for months, you'll probably still finish before me...

Hope all is well and that the new job is good.
Leon

OK, so.......
The P-51 is now finished and in the past two weeks I have devoted both....yes both of my hours of spare time to my P-38J. Here is a little update picture. As usual, the picture quality is rather bad........but then in my case it goes quite well with the bad quality of my builds.
The major construction is done and the first coat of MM aluminum plate is on. I plan on masking off a few areas later and applying a couple of different shades of metal paint to different panels. It looks like I'm going to have to stick with using the decals for all the blue areas since I have been unable to find a shade of blue to match the numbers etc. If anyone has any ideas on this let me know.
As of right now, there will be NO....I repeat....NO close up pictures of this aircraft in it's final stage. There was soooo much sanding and filling on this bird that it was impossible with my skill level to hide or fix all the sanding marks.
Anyway, here is where I stand.


ps, a little birdie told me that you (Leon) had something to do with a certain Tiger figure being sent to me. What a great surprise! It'll go great with the 1/24 scale AVG Tiger I bought from Squadron a few weeks ago. Now, if I can only find time to start building it. :-) Thanks Leon!

Looks good Hermon. I hope in the end you take back your no close up statement. I'm sure it will come together. Plus, won't you want to really show off the nose art.

As for my part in the awesome little resin flying tiger. I can really take no credit at all. I am, again, amazed at the generosity of Jean-Luc - All I asked for was a translation and he did, and came up with, everything else. Now there is a very good guy!!!

Anyway, again, your build is looking good. Mine is in the same stage and it sounds like neither one of us is getting huge amounts of time to work. I'll race you to see who can be the slowest...

Hope all is well.
Leon

hi,

I'm still in!
Tomorrow i go to Dublin for 5 days. After that I'll start building my crate.
Nice builds both of you
And VonCuda, you're always saying that your plane and weapons are superior, but before you can use them you have to learn to aim!
We'll beat you with some nice coördinated wingman tactics.

an after battle image:

Good to see you Winters1. I was worried we had lost you. It will be nice to have you involved. Looking forward to it...
Leon

do you guys have MSN or something like that?