Outstanding! That is one rocking plane man! It's size does make it a bit difficult to photograph though....
I'm loving it, can't wait to see more.
Meanwhile, here's another serious Shelf Queen I've started working on again after having it sit for three years on the bench. I finally did what I've been needing to do for awhile. The booster rockets needed to be masked so the stripes on them could be painted. I also needed to paint the tail, so that got masked too:
I used up all my Tamiya 1/2" tape on that.
Using my trusty Sotar 20/20 airbrush, I painted all the black, red and yellow stripes and the yellow boxes at the top of the boosters:
While that was drying, I decided to assemble all the possible payloads for the shuttle. I am hoping to put down a full display with labels showing everything the shuttle can carry in front of the model itself. Here they are all assembled. Gotta look them up to see how they should be painted:
While that was drying, I also painted the grey on the leading edge of the shuttle wings and then removed all the masking on the shuttle itself and snapped the tail in place. You can also see a preview of the lower sections of the boosters with their masks removed:
Here are the boosters all unmasked:
But wait, I still needed to paint the vertical channels as well, so I masked off the channels for paint:
...and then painted them, removing the masks when they were dry:
Then I finished the boosters; assembling them fully. These things are tall!
Finally I cemented both booster assemblies to the main fuel tank, completing that whole portion of the model:
That box fan behind this assembly is a 24" box fan so you can get a general idea of how huge this beastie is. Now all I have to do is decal the shuttle and then it will be ready for mounting on the fuel tank.
Only one problem though: the forward bracket that holds the front part of the shuttle to the fuel tank broke off and went missing. It is a V-shaped part that I need to find. If however, anyone has a 1/72 scale Monogram Space Shuttle they don't intend to mount on the boosters and fuel tank, I'll be willing to buy that part from you. Please let me know.
I'll keep you posted on this one. I do hope I can find and/or replace that forward bracket soon so I can finish this during this year and not have it sit for another year!