Finally finished it today, my build of the 1/48 Revell F-4 Phantom II C/D. This model kit was originally built by Monogram and was acquired by Revell when they went out of business. I had this kit when I was a young boy and lost it, now when I had the chance, I decided to build it again. The difference being is that now I have the proper tools and paint (well most of it anyway) to build this kit properly.
The major mistake I made on this model kit was that the front canopy did not align properly with the nose of the plane. That's a lesson for me there. After I masked the canopy, I then glued it on the fuselage. With the masking tape on the canopy, it looked very much well aligned. But I guess oneside of the canopy was masked more than the other so that it looked thicker and therefore was the cause of it being misaligned. My mistake and a lesson well learned.
Paints used for this kit were off the shelf paints and a couple of markers. Bosny Olive Green, Bosny White, Bosny Flat Black, Bosny Mahogany, Bosny Dull Lacquer, Pylox Khaki Beige, Pylox Flat White, Pylox Grey, Pylox Dark Green, Pylox Singa Green, Pylox Misty Grey, Gundam Marker Grey, Gundam Marker White and Daiso Pastels for weathering.
To paint the brown parts I mixed Pylox Khaki Beige and Bosny Mahogany together after I decanted it from their cans. I also sprayed on the Bosny Olive Green using an airbrush. I used my trusty Badger 250-2 airbrush when applying these colors. The Badger 250-2 is supposed to be resilient to lacquer paints, even if isn't, it won't be much of a loss if it gets busted as its price is affordable. I love the simple bottom feed design of the Badger 250-2, which makes cleaning it afterwards not so much of a burden. Truly a great entry level airbrush.
The Badger was connected to an external tank as I still don't own a compressor. I actually found the tank to be convenient for my needs as I don't have a work area inside the house anymore for painting. Since it doesn't require electricity, I can just bring it out the house and look for a spot where the wind isn't blowing so hard. This was the second time for me to use an airbrush to paint a model kit and it truly was a fun experience.
With this kit being my first foray into weathering using pastels, I have to say that it was truly a joy to do. I also applied a pastel wash on this in order to give it more depth. I found a great tutorial on youtube for this, you can see it here.
For application of the camouflage I used the blue-tack method of covering up the parts that needed to be camouflaged with blue tack. Took about 3 complete coats as there were 3 colors involved.
Really had fun building this because of the nostalgia factor of revisiting an old model kit. I'm closing the book on this one and am jumping over to build the Revell 1/48 Hind-D.
