With a little under 2 months invested in it, and with a short 2 week hiatus in there as well, the build has finally drawn to a close. As this kit was a gift from SWMBO, it has been built OOB, with no scratchbuilt details or plumbing in the LG bays, etc. The only thing I added to it other than paint and glue were a set of TwoBobs decals. Load out is my own creation, and is in no way intended to be accurate.......I just think it looks cool.

A lot of great things have been said about this kit, and I would have to say that they are 100% accurate. This kit is so well engineered, it practically builds itself. As such, I actually found the project a little boring (my apologies to all Viper lovers), and once the airframe was assembled, I let the kit sit for two weeks before I got out the airbrush......a first for me.

Enough rambling, on to a few pics:






Thanks to all who watched the build, and provided comments along the way.

:cheers:

Looks really great. Would you happen to have photos of the engine, and engine bay that come with the kit? How does the tail-fin detach? (the kit's supposed to be stored in its own box, right?)

Thank you for the photos again.

Thanks Andras,

Tail simply lifts up, as it is held in place by a plastic tab, and two metal pins. That said, I glued mine in place. And yes, the kit is designed to fit inside an insert that comes in the kit box, provided you remove the tail, and all ordnance.

As for the engine and bay, here are a few pics from my in progress build:



All pics from the build can be seen here:

Link

Excellent job, looks great!

I love this model. I am building a 1/32 Revell F-16c and I don't think it will come near to this. Amazing Job

that is just stunning!

Thanks for the kind words folks. It's far from great, but looks great from far.

Wow I missed this one, sorry Kevin. I was following the progress thread. Excellent job, she’s a beautiful. Photo no.#3 is my favorite Great job on the painting, your first right! Your weathering and fading is sharp. You say the TwoBobs worked well, did you use any softners with them. Again great job

Joe

Great job on this one! The result is magificent and the the load out definently looks cool to me

Thanks for sharing

Nicely done. So much so that it has spurred me on to start the weathering on my Thunderbirds version of this kit

Thank you to all. The kit is now on display at the local shop for the next little while, so I don't even get to look at it unless in the pics.




Thanks Joe. Paintjob isn't my first, just the fact that I let the assembled airframe sit for two weeks before I painted it. I kind of lost interest in the build for a little while.

As for setting solutions, most of the decals were put down onto a fresh "pool" of Future, and as the Future dried, it sucked the decal down into the detail. Those decals that are in two parts had the bottom decal applied onto a "pool" of Future, then when dry (the next day), the top part of the decal was applied. Only those decals were given a brush of Micro Sol. I then sealed all decals as per usual with a coat of Future prior to my wash.

Very nice! Well done.

Cool. Gotta get me one of those!

nicely done. thanks for sharing!

Many thanks Thomas, Carl, and Christopher.