and other artistic stuff
Finally I’ve actually got something done! I’ve started assembling the parts for the cockpit and then I’ve painted it all black.
Not much additional painting needed. The seat cushions will be khaki and the I’ll pick out some details and dry brush the entire cockpit. I just realised that I forgot to paint the inside of the fuselage black.
If I am to believe the instructions, it’s only the Gulf war version who has those “danger” markings on the sides of the head rest. Have to check!
Anyway, the seats can go in later and the cockpit was fitted into the front fuselage halves and glued in place.
A bit fiddly and I had to glue one bit at a time. For some reason there’s a gap between the front panel and coaming. Have to carefully fill it with plastic or putty. Hard to sand where it’s already painted.
I’ll sand and check all seams, and use putty where needed.
The wings have gears and turnable pylons, but as it is now the pylons can turn any direction, and really don’t sit very tight.
On the 1/48 kit there’s a mechanism to turn both pylons at the same time. I wonder why they didn’t do that on this one?
Maybe they thought of it afterwards.
The cockpit is more or less done and can be fitted into the fuselage halves.
As the plane is standing on the ground with engine off, I decided to omit the instrument decals and instead have blank screens.
A few decals for the seats still needs to be added. Other than that the cockpit is ready for the next step.
I started by painting everything black.
Then most parts got a cote of Dk gull grey, and then I added a few drops of white and made another pass to break it up a bit.
Then I started painting details.
The seats will have more colours and some more details will be added to the panels as well as instrument decals.
I did a wash and then some minor dirtying down in the cockpit. I think I’ll leave it at that.
There are 2 decals for the small black side panels. I haven’t decided if I wanna use them yet.
I used Magic Sculpt to add details to the ugly kit stick.
Hopefully I didn’t make it worse. Perhaps a tad bit large.
I also made new rudder pedals from plastic. Here glued and painted.
Control stick painted. I also added some bits of plastic to raise it somewhat.
The instrument panel was painted.
Then I painted the upper parts in black and added instrument decals.
Then I did a test fick of the whole cockpit.
With some wash and dirtying down I think it’ll look alright. At least a lot better than the things the kit provided.
Now I need to decide what to do with the “sight”. Next I think cockpit will be done and inserted into the fuselage.