Sorry for the new thread but I couldn't edit the old one.
Anyway. first photo shows the air intakes completed now and I think they came out OK.


Next is the landing gear and undercarriage doors with an attempt at weathering I used Humbrol black matt enamal thinned down. I had painted the gear with a coat of Klear as at first go with the doors the white paint sucked up the mixture rather than it running along the seam lines.



The next photos are the undercarriage bays. Again I coated with Klear but I don't think one coat was enough as again the white soaked up the mixture. I tried some different methods to see what works and i'm stil not sure.
One was black enamal / thinners. One was oil brown umber / thinners
front section was brown umber / white spirit




I'm going to respray the white as I don't think any work. Any hints or tips would be appreciated for the weathering.

Looking good so far Chris. The frount undercarriage bay and the legs look quite realistic.

For white under undercarriages, doors and bay i always find priming the parts with two coats of Halfords white primer followed by two coats of Halfords Gloss appliance white. More often or not I decant them into an airbrush jar and airbrush (no need for thinning) it for better control. This normally works well for a base to start with for weathering. I leave this to harden for 48 hours or more and then start the weathering. For the weathering I either use:

1. Oil paints thinned with turpentine. The colours I normally use is Payne’s grey or Davies grey (occasionally I even use cobalt blue for oil stains)
2. Tamiya acrylics thinned with isopropanol

It takes a bit of practice (or dumb luck) getting your mix right but it should be thin enough so once your brush is "loaded" one touch on the kit and the thinned mix will flow along the recessed area with no difficulty. The Tamiya route dries quickly so can be hard to clean up a "mistake where as the oils take a little longer for corrections.

Hope this makes sense.

NB. You don’t necessarily need to edit your original thread/post (as you can only edit it upto 24 hours from posting). Just add another post to the thread with your update (unless you cant find it of course )

Thanks for the advice. I had read about using Halford Primer before somewhere on the site. Unfortunately all the ones near me only had the areosol primer. I keep looking though and give it a go.

Halford's primers and sprays only come in aerosol as they are designed for car bodies. With a bit of practice you can get some decent finishes on kits. I, however prefer to "decant" the aerosol into an old film canister or glass jar and airbrush the model. The beauty of this is that it's ready thinned for airbrushing and cleans up off the airbrush with Badger or Revell airbrush cleaner with no problems

Thanks I never thought of trying it that way I'm off to Halfords ASAP.

Here is the latest progress.

Fugelage is complete and has been undercoated. Undershaded with black and then airbrushed with grey. I don't think it needs another coat but if you disagree please say
Unfortunately i've cracked the main canopy but i'm hoping it won't show to much when finished.
Next step is to coat with Klear and then high light panel lines.
I'll keep you updated

Nearly finished. Main body is complete and just the missiles and bombs left to do. This is my first time using oils to high light the panel lines. For my first go I think I done ok but did find problems with areas where i had sanded away the recessed lines and forgot to redo them before it was to late. But i won't make the same mistake again. Please feel free to comment. Next post with the finished item.

Hi Chris

looking good! do not forget the APU exhaust stains (see arrow)



The dirt ranging from a very faint streak



to heavy dirt (I have seen even worse than this, but I cant find fotos)



cheers

Steffen

Good work, Chris. Looking forward to see the finishing touches.

Thanks for the photo's stefan I'll make sure the stains are there on the final model.