F-15E EAGLE
Tamiya 1/32 Scale

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Time to mask the intakes and canopy for painting.

 

I definitely have more patience for masking now than I did in my past modeling life.  I think I realize that proper masking is actually faster than fixing all the problems later.


  


There was an ugly gap and some weird detail on the front edge of the windscreen

 

I filled the gap and scraped off the detail.

  


Finally, after all the prep work -  on to the paint job.

 

Here is the model after pre-shading all the panel lines and recesses black.  Very little of this should show through but it should add some nice variation in the base colors.  The stand I built is outstanding for holding the model while I work on it.  Both for painting and for detail work like the windscreen fix above.

  


One really cool thing about having Photoshop, a scanner and a nice printer is that I can make some pretty nice paper masks.  Maybe I will just tape on the paper instead of painting :)

 

These are scans I made of the instructions then resized them to 1/32 scale and printed them on my color printer.  They ended up being a touch too big but they are only a guide.  Computers have even made a difference to building models.  I will even have a few custom decals on the kit too.


For the most part I am just using the masks as a guide for the silly putty that I am using for masking but for the horizontal and vertical stabilizers it is easier to use the paper masks.



After the silly putty was on I removed all the paper the masked the areas with tape.


  


The first color to go on was the lightest (as usual) which in this case is the sand color.  In most cases the entire model would be painted the light color and the camouflage painted with the other two colors.  That won't really work with the pre-shading since that method would build up too many layers of paint and obscure the pre-shading.  Thus I have to mask each color individually.  I am also doing the top before the grey on the bottom because it would be hard to get a consistent demarcation if I was having to mask the grey for each color of the camouflage.  Doing the grey last I can mask all three top colors once and get a nice even demarcation between the top and bottom of the plane.

 

Sand

Since you can' t tell in the pictures anyway I did not take a picture of this, but the sand color that I had spent weeks getting working on to get the "perfect" shade looked terrible.  It had more in common with lemons than sand.  Time for a little panic.  I  knew that I wanted a brighter color than the color in the instructions (FS33531), which I had a bottle of so I took the base color and mixed it 50/50 with my lemon yellow and misted it over the model again.  It ended up turning out exactly the color I wanted.  Next time I am not going to spend so much time on the pre-color work and just lighten/brighten the base color as needed.


I may have obscured the pre-shading a bit too much with the last coat of the corrected color, but it is supposed to be subtle so it will probably be ok.  Now that the initial color is on it will be easier to soften the edges of the camouflage with the subsequent coats.  The main reason for using silly putty for masking was to get the soft edge that is on the real plane.  It would be far easier to just use tape and get a real nice hard edge.  I will let this dry for a couple of days while I go on a business trip then I will paint the green.




Green

After getting back from my trip I masked all the green areas and the painted this morning.  I did a little research on the Aircraft Colors paint that I am using and it turns out that it was made by Vallejo, so it should be pretty good paint.  It is out of production now but someone on one of the forums said that all the Aircraft Colors colors are still in the Vallejo line just with a different name.


This is starting to get exciting!



Brown

I painted the green in the morning and then broke one of the cardinal rules of painting and started masking for the brown this evening.  I need to get the basic paint job done before I go on holidays or I don't think I will get done in time.  In case I have not mentioned it, on time means ready for the model contest on October 1st.  Anyway, I used Tamiya tape for masking the green and for the brown instead of the blue tape because the Tamiya tape is much less likely to peel off any paint.  It is also easier to use - just way more expensive.


So the Tamiya tape peeled off without a hitch and I think things are looking pretty dang good.  The silly putty mask worked great.  It really gave that slight feathered look to the edges of each color that the real plane has.  Tomorrow I will touch up the rough edges and over sprays and fix some of the shapes that are not quite right.  I will probably do the touch ups free hand - wish me luck.

  


I got some really nice looking resin wheels from a out of business (I think) French company named Contact Resine.  While I was waiting for the paint to dry I decided to get the wheels ready for painting and discovered something quite remarkable - which may explain why Contact Resine is out of business.

 

Here is one of the rear wheels with a nice flat spot showing the weight of the plane.


Here is one of the Tamiya metal landing struts with a nice locator pin (the rectangular piece just above the axle) to keep the flat part of the tire in the proper location.  You can see where it goes in the top picture of the wheel.


And a test fitting of the two parts.  If you can't see the problem then I will point it out in a few days.  So now I have to cut off the locator pin because the nice resin wheel will not fit on the axle correctly, which is too bad because I think that will really compromise the strength of the assembly.

  


Well, I was worried about getting everything I wanted to get done before I left completed, but I did - with time to spare.  And it looks better than I thought too.

 

Here are some pictures of the F-15 all futured out and ready for decals when I get back from Lethbridge.  After spending some frustrating time touching up mistakes and overspray I put 3 light coats of future on the plane.  The clear coat should be as hard as a rock by the time I get back.




I also removed the blue painters tape from the engine area because I was afraid of it peeling off the paint if it was on too long.  I used it by accident in the first place as I intended to use the Tamiya tape but it came off just fine.

  


After I got back from Alberta I set to work on the decals.  The set is quite nice but I was worried about the eagle decal on the tail because the sand color on the decal was so much different than the color I used - and the actual color on the real plane.

 

Here are some shots of the plane with all the decals in place.


  


As you can see in on of the pictures above the eagle decal on the tail looks terrible.  It is a custom decal that I scanned from the original sheet and changed the color in Photoshop.  The brown behind the decal shows through and some of the toner chipped off the decal when I was installing it.  Something had to change.

 

Here is a sample of the large number of test decals I printed trying to get something to work, and a close up of the tail with the final decal in place.  This is actually the second decal I put on.  I removed the first because it was even worse.
 

I cut out a template in frisket paper with the intention of painting white behind the paper when I realized that I could just paint the sand colored background of the eagle.  I snapped off the vertical stabilizers for this because it would be much easier to get things lined up properly it they were not attached to the rest of the plane.  Here you can see my first cutout frisket mask.  I also did a test where I cut out the gray markings on another frisket and painted them on my test model.  I was very encouraged by the result.  You can't actually print onto the frisket paper with a printer.  the laser would melt it and the ink jet wont work, but you can print onto the back paper with the inkjet.  So you just need to flip the image in Photoshop, print it and cut the image out.


With the test behind me I set to work cutting out the good masks and removing the old decal from the tails.  This took about 2 hours per tail.  The frisket to mask the grey was very elaborate and quite delicate to cut.  I then painted the sand color.


I got the second and more intricate frisket lined up.  It occurred to me that with the elaborate mask I could have cut out half of the marks on one and half on a second then painted twice.  This would have make the mask less flimsy where the intricate marks are close together.  Oh well, next time.


I then painted the dark grey of the eagle design.  I must say I am very pleased with the result.  Far better than any decal would have been.  Next time I can just go straight to the frisket instead of all the messing around with the custom decals.  Even better would be to buy my wife a vinyl letter cutter for Christmas.  Then the computer could just do all of the intricate cuts for me.

  


While I was messing around with the decals and masking I was also doing the black wash on the rest of the plane.

 


 

  


With only a couple of days left till the contest I finally finished the ejection seats.

 

The blue and green cushons on the Israeli seats will make them stand out in the cockpit.

  


I was pressed for time but did manage to take a few pictures of some of the details I was working on.
 

Here you can see the counter measure ejection system as well as the results of the wash on the bottom of the plane


Here is the area around the air conditioning vent.  Again you can really see the nice quality of the Alclad II paints.


This is just some random paneling painte with Alclad II dull aluminum.  I think it was suposed to be grey but I like this better.

  

Here are the angle of attack probes I got from Master Models (Poland).  They are really nice.  I was wondering how I was going to replace the plastic ones I broke off.  I am going to buy several sets of these just so I have them.
 

You can see how small they are by looking at the knife blade but I really think they add a lot.

  

On a side note - this chrome siver enamel paint from Model Master is really nice.  Probably the best silver paint for brushing I have ever seen.  It looks like mercury in the jar.