TTomcat's Tomcats

[moon puppy]

Is that more nail polish? I bet taht stuff is hard as nails when dry.

 

[jknaus]

Okay, now this is totally cool. And neat colour too.
James

 

[Sherman 18]

interesting :hmmm

 

[taiidantomcat]

And here we go...

Art by Chris Foss for the movie Dune (pity it never got used)+NYC Jade Green=

I refined the canopy idea to give it a curvy organic shape.

Other pieces and parts

Underside, showing panels and removed masks to expose the metallics

Closer up

Metallics on the top side. I wanted to keep the organic look up front along with the wavy camo and contrast that with the more utilitarian engines/panels. The camo is also there to camo the "less than good quality" of the model too LOL

The nose cone, I used a pin vise and added that little "bowling ball" formation you see there. I have observed little holes like that in science fiction drawings, thought it would be an easy way to add a little "complexity" to it. You will also notice I did a curvy mask too.

After paint, but before I sanded it down to pretty it up and remove some of that texture there. Also worth noting is I went over a lot of the model with a second coat to rid it of the brush streaks you see in the pictures, so no worries there!

Thanks for looking!

 

[moon puppy]

well one thing for sure, no one can call you on accuracy.

Looks good.

 

[taiidantomcat]

well one thing for sure, no one can call you on accuracy.

Too True!!

Update:

Canopy remasked to protect the clear parts from future Flat Coat

Scale modelers have sharp eyes, so I wanted to create some unique stencils that wouldn't be what we are used to seeing.

Decals and wash done. The Decals are not wanting to stay on, so we will see what makes the cut when all is said and done. The stabs and fins are glued on in this pic. the canopy is fitted just to see how it all looks. Should be ready for the flat coat, and very close to the finish line.

 

[lupanzer]

Cool...extremely different

Luiz

 

[Gator]

Very cool!

 

[moon puppy]

Wonder if you can embed the decals with a clear coat. I was doing that on the B10, taking decal strips dipped in Alclad Aqua Clear gloss and fixing them as canopy frames. Future would work the same.

 

[SA Dave]

now that is an tiger of a difrent stripe

 

[taiidantomcat]

Thank you everybody!! :cheer:

Flat coat on, which is important it toned down a bright scheme and made it look more "tactical"

Toned down the metalizer too. I was a little curious how the flat coat would affect this.

Shot of the tails, and the unconventional marking placement.

I used Tamiya weathering but it did not show much in the pic. I have to use F-18 exhausts because the engines are so narrow on this 1/48 cat that they don't match up to 1/48 F110/F100/TF-30/AL-31 sized exhausts. These are from the Revell Super Bug.

Highly advanced post-it masking method! Using pastels and an old beat up brush. Much easier to "fake" panel lines this way than scribing

I erred on the more extreme side with this weathering for two reasons. Number 1, Its science fiction baby!! Can't have enough. And 2 with the very toy-like gaudy scheme I did not it to look like a toy.

Really like the engine deck weathering.

The landing gear are still a work in progress, and I am eager to start other projects, so I might take some finishing shots and then add the landing gear later on as I finished other Tomcats :

 

[lupanzer]

Beautiful...emigmatic

Luiz

 

[taiidantomcat]

Onto the "next worst" LOL here is Darren's review from the OP in this thread:

Fujimi F-14:
This kit is just slightly less hideous than the Revell kit. It has absolutely nothing in common with Fujimi’s excellent 1/72 scale offering. Why Fujimi hasn’t scaled up that kit to 1/48 scale is beyond me. My example has a production date of 1995 and has some improvements added to the original release, which was in the late 1970’s.early 1980’s. These changes include the newer tail stiffeners and an alpha probe on the radome. They should have kept going on the improvements!

Cockpit (D-): The cockpit is extremely rudimentary and inaccurate. It consists of a floorboard with molded in side consoles. The instrument panels are flat and decals are provided for the instrumentation. At least it has a control stick! The seats don’t even resemble GRU-7’s, although they do have the face curtain pull handles. There is no rear decking behind the RIO, but instead has a set of “black boxes”. The only bright spot of the entire cockpit is a nicely done “sissy handle” on top of the RIO’s instrument coaming.

Shape (C): The Fujimi kit has always looked a little odd to me. I finally figured out why. A friend of mine sent me a book with early Tomcat cutaway drawings. The Fujimi shape matches these almost perfectly. The drawings even have the black boxes behind the RIO. Fujimi must have based this kit off of those drawings. The forward fuselage is too chunky in height and too narrow in profile, having almost a triangular shape when viewing it from head-on. The boat tail is too narrow between the engine nozzles, which are extremely simplistic and are only available in the closed position. The burner can is also very simple, with no detail on the interior of the can and a simply molded flame holder. The intakes are too small and shallow. The airflow doors inside the intakes are molded in the down position, leaving almost no opening. Wheel well detail in the main wheel bays is non-existent, and the detail in the front bay is completely fictitious.

Surface Detail (C): The forward fuselage is very nicely engraved, although it is a bit deep. The rear fuselage and wings, however, are all raised lines, and not accurate at that. It’s a bizarre combination. The main wheel bays have zero detail, while the front bay has at least a little ribbing detail. The landing gear is thin and spindly, not nearly coming close to the Tomcat’s beefy-looking gear. The front gear doesn’t contain the two small catapult bar struts on either side of the oleo. The wheels are acceptable and are molded in halves. The chin pod is the “bullet” fairing and is molded onto the plastic. Fuel tanks are provided and are acceptable. Wing glove vanes are provided. The probes on the side of the fuselage are mediocre at best, and the one right below the canopy sill on the starboard side is completely the wrong shape.

Fit (C-): Overall, the fit isn’t too bad. The two major problem areas are where the forward fuselage assembly meets the rear assembly, and where the clear parts meet the framing on the canopy along with the fit of the windscreen to the nose.

Ordnance (F): The missiles in this kit are horrible. They look like they were molded in the 1960’s! The Phoenix pylons are too short and rounded and look funny when put on. I left them off. The only shoulder pylon provided is for the Phoenix, so your choice of loadout is either 6 Phoenixes and 2 Sidewinders, or 4 Sparrows under the fuselage and a Sidewinder and Phoenix on each of the shoulder stations.

Pros: Good “sissy” handle on RIO’s coaming, radar unit that would make for a good base for scratchbuilding, separate stabilators, pilot figures, and …um…and….well…that’s about it.

Cons: Too many to list.

Overall Score: 3/10

Yikes! 3? But its still better than the last one (1)!! so here are some initial pictures. It has an intersting "fat" look in the midsection:

You eagle eyed F-14 fans can probably see what Darren was talking about with the very thin cross section on the front, but on the plus side it does have panel lines, and they don't look half bad.

Some opening moves. This color is actually much darker IRL than the pic indicates.

Removed the tab in there for the kit seat, It doesn't have the best detail and will be replaced. also I hate to do it again but...

I'm probably going to do another single seater. The last Tomcat I just had inspiration to spare, and this one is a bit more of a grind.

 

[SA Dave]

And he is off again

 

[taiidantomcat]

Thanks Dave! Well some things went well, then things went not so well, then they got really bad (going to have to upload the pics first and do a separate update though for that mess)

Clamped up. This went fairly smoothly actually. Another knock against this kit though, is the articulation of the wings-- its very very tight and non cooperative, you have to use enough force to move the wings but not so much to break anything so you have to be very deliberate, but I do like that it has the little glove vanes that go in and out not all Tomcat kits have this.

Well this Tomcat project is about experimentation and trying new stuff, so I tried new stuff. If you like perfectly crystal clear canopies, look away now.

I used some Future and Pearl Ex Pigments, in the clear plastic from a super glue package to see how that worked.

Checking to see how some metallic paint works on the clear parts, checking transparency and to see if it would craze.

Metallics behind the cockpit tub

I also experimented with that pearl ex nail polish I used on the Revell Cat. Having tons of Revellogram Tomcats I used a canopy to see how things would work. I liked the way it looked so I tried it on the Fujumi, but it did not work as well as I had hoped. I think on the test canopy it worked better because I didn't stir it, instead taking the thin layer at the top of the bottle, but on the Fujumi Canopy I stirred so it got thick and I lost a lot of the translucency. Doh! You can also the pearl ex pigments applied to the test canopy on the back half. thanks for stopping by!

 

[moon puppy]

Man that's some color!

I did that with a canopy a couple of times. The B1 I did in a gold AlcladII, it looked ok. But the F5 I did was in silver and I gave it a black backing. Do the Silver first then black. REally gave it depth.

Looking good

 

[taiidantomcat]

Man that's some color!

I did that with a canopy a couple of times. The B1 I did in a gold AlcladII, it looked ok. But the F5 I did was in silver and I gave it a black backing. Do the Silver first then black. REally gave it depth.

Looking good

I like the sound of that

I've been bad about updating this

Silver painted intakes with confetti for engine faces. This will create a futuristic "blue glow"

The original plan was to paint it turquoise, but first I need to mask and prime white. This is where it all went wrong. The masks just refused to cooperate. With such poor masking, I had to give up, and just peeled everything off to see where I was now.

The masks peeled seemingly everywhere, with the exception of the wing tip tops.

 

[moon puppy]

sorry about the mask but should be easy clean up. If I may suggest, when you lay the mask down come back with the base color to seal in any gaps, or a clear coat. That way if there are any gaps it's filled in with the color and the next layer of color doesn't bleed in under the mask.

 

[taiidantomcat]

sorry about the mask but should be easy clean up. If I may suggest, when you lay the mask down come back with the base color to seal in any gaps, or a clear coat. That way if there are any gaps it's filled in with the color and the next layer of color doesn't bleed in under the mask.

That is some good advice! I have always wanted to try something like that!

After thinking on this for about a week and being completely at a loss as to how to fix it, I decided that black was the way to go-- the trick was not covering it all out of frustration!

The first step was masking and covering all the Orange. As you can see these masks had issues too.

I then masked added more pink... lots of coats.

Touched up with hand brushed black, and I covered the bottom where it needed it (Most everywhere!!)

I was going to go with some really nice mud hen exhausts, but this model has been a disaster so its going to be the F100s on the right for simplicity sake, and I'll save the fancy one for something else.

Thanks for looking

 

[moon puppy]