Rock

They are back!?!? Everything instock too! https://jasmodel.shop/collections/photo-etched-parts-for-assemble-model

Red, blue, or black? Money on red!

You gonna have to buy all that detail from 3rd parties via resin, etch or prints! lol But, man would it build like a dream. If your going for detail in 1/48 nobody is topping Minibase their recent Flankers are a step above! The only Fujimi kit I've had the pleasure was the Datsun Z/S30 in the mid 2000's. I don't have any fond memories of it as it was quite a curve ball for a beginner snapfit gunpla builder 19 years ago... even more of a suprise finding out it was just a repackage of their older 90's kit with cartograph decals!

An amazon led light set (dimming and color temp selectable.) I glued magnet strips to the top of the light box. And to the lighs to be able to move them in the box. Finnhomy plastic white, grey, warm white, and black backgrounds and their old 20x20 reflective and collapsing light box. Camera is just my phone. 😆 Now to the REAL question. VF-1J 5Grand or VF-1A Strike Valkyrie next?

If you did the black primer/base, you may just score the lines with a knife and able to remove paint instead of a wash.

Let there be light(box)

@Thom Use some canopy glue like Ammo Ultra to fill the gap between the halves? Got the light box refreshed for the first time in 12 years. All new lights and backdrops. Tried it out on my PG Double O Gundam. Needs a bit more light balancing and possibly another led strip (down low in the front to kill the shadows,) but pretty happy. Will leave it up this weekend and try to snap a few pics of last years finished builds before it goes back into storage.

Remodeling, recasting and remodeling again. Ahhhhhhh

We aim to be perfect.

-see below- Uschi van der Rosten's "Trinity Splatter 2" is by far the best set I've come across. Their site has plenty of companies to buy them from, or just go to good old eBay. A few others make and sell them as "weathering airbrush stencils." AK is popular alternative. I just really like the brass one for durability/reusability and since you have to soak them in thinner to clean (no scrubbing as they are essentially a big photo etch piece. https://www.uschivdr.com/shopping-categories/shop-photo-etch/

If yours came with 3, cut one in half and on the other remove the thick border edge. Or just bend one into a 90° angle. That way you can get in closer. Remember you don't want perfect patterns. Imperfect is more natural as counter intuitive as that sounds. A bit of trial and error, keep going!

After Iran was cut off from USA tech they played around with adapting mim-23 Hawk surface to air missiles! https://www.twz.com/33456/iran-equipped-its-f-14s-with-modified-hawk-sams-that-had-bombs-attached-to-their-noses Here is a great read/transcribe on reddit with images.

Phone glitch

Home stretch

Basic colors on the go fast bits. Stainless steel, pale burnt metal, hot carbon and burnt iron followed by a brown and black dirty wash. Easy on the painting as I want to revisit some other forms of weathering I hadn't really touched in 20+ years when I was fresh around the ears. Hope to get the engines wrapped up by tomorrow so I can focus on the experimental payload it was equipped with and finally clear the workbench!

I went light to dark as the darker colors covered the base layers faster with less paint. Even if my lighter color's coat had fuzzy edges, it was easily correctable with the darker colors without loosing the ground work. I had to come back in a few places with the tan to correct some of the camo patterns, somehow ot dodn't really take away from the soft edge/shading. It may be a scale thing though as IIRC you keep working on them tiny scales, lol. Marking correctsions, topcoat and then it's weathering time!

Started trying making blu tac snakes to mask the camo and quickly found that that was a waste of time and ruined my foundational efforts. Freehand it is relying of preshading techniques and thinned overcoats. Edit: cant attach pic it seems via mobile

Maverick finally being okay with passing the torch and being a leader to the next generation. He kind of started going down this path by being the instructer in TG2, but in the end he reverted back to being just an ace pilot. I don't think Tom Cruise would allow that though as he tends to always be the main action hero, not playing 2nd or 3rd string. I defiantly would like to see Maverick's studemts returning. Hangman, Rooster, Pheonix, and Bob were great!

Just pay attention to you paint. If they are PE sheet thin stencils, don't try to scrub them clean as you'll bend them up in the process. Soak in appropriate (paint type dependent) thinner.

I don't enjoy painting black kits or I'd consider. Blackbird, Stealth Bomber, and a handful of Yukikaze kits in the stash have placeholders for a black finish amd that is enough for me. I still have 2 cats to build, one will have to be a Jolly Rodger Bombcat, the other is my grail kit, one with every pannel opened up for service (late 90's Tomcatters.) Highly rec the Trinity stencils over freehand marbling. You can over thin your paint to use less materials. Also resulting in way less paint filling the (Tamiya super thin) panel lines while you build up layers. There is also the fact you can do a whole 1/48 bird in about an hour! Keen eyes will spot some early A exclusive parts!

You can buy gold and bronze flake to mix into something like Tamiya clear yellow/orange. Even if you used gold laquer paint as your first layer you would just need to dust enough of it onto the inside of the canopy to give the illusion of a metallic diffusion before coming in behind it with you clear color acrylic paints. Or you could possibly can grab some Mr. Metal Primer, which is clear as your base layer. Dusting. Let fully dry. Light coat. That is what some of the FSS modelers use for clear resin parts when trying to preserve the translucency before moving to pearlescents. Many options.

A very well known, photographed Ali Cat carrying very unique payload! One doesn't always get a snow day, but when you do, there is no better way to kill it than painting! All a bit premature when I still have some work to do finishing up the bay doors and another unique feature. Still in love with my Black Mr. SURFACER 1500! 1:2:0.5 paint, ak high combatability thinner, and mr color leveling thinner. Just a dream to airbrush at 15psi on large surfaces! Thin, smooth and fast drying!

Light mods to the oob pilots to get them into the slightly smaller resin cockpit amd to get them to look more like IRAF pilots rather than repainted Navy aces. Some harnesses/seatbelts for the bandits using a few layers of some tape and buckle details from some PE belts I had stashed away. Good enough for a closed canopy.