After six months on the bench, I’m quite happy with the end result on this one. This build faced a lot of challenges and problems to solve but never stopped being a fun build. It was incredibly satisfying to update this kit to a modern standard.
I finished the model in a standard flat finish, enjoy the completed build photos Below!
With the paintwork sealed under a gloss coat, I then was able to apply the scheme decals. With some of the markings being painted on with masks this phase of the build was fairly quick and proceeded smoothly. Where things bogged down was with the 200+ stencils that needed to be applied over top these markings. I can’t lie; this wasn’t a particularly enjoyable part of the build and I’m glad I’m past it!
With the decals more or less completed I was able to move on to weathering. With the amount of pre-shading work completed, I knew that I wanted to keep the weathering light as to not overpower the paintwork. I opted for a simple dark wash and some light streaking effects. After these were applied, I applied a flat coat to keep everything together. With the flat coat done it was finally time to unmask the canopy and camera bay.
At this late stage of the build the last things left were the gear bays, the camera equipment and the canopy frames. I completed the gear and gear bays first so that I could get the model standing on its own legs. Painting and weathering were pretty straightforward in this area, just some Gloss white over black primer before adding some decals and weathering in the form of a brown oil wash.
I also took this time to build up the pylons and the ECM pod. These were from Reskit and the detail was fantastic.
Last but not least was the canopies and their resin frames. The set from Hypersonic models really fills out the detail in this area and makes these parts look a lot more real in my option.
After several months on the bench, it came time to apply paint to the model. As with the majority of the models I build, I utilized the black basing technique to apply pre-shading to the model.
After the initial coat of Mr. Finishing surfacer black 1500, I used a generic light grey to serve as the initial marble coat. I wanted to make sure that my marble work was sufficiently light enough as if the base layers turned out too dark, the final paint coats would also appear too dark and require too much paint to bring the colour back into the final finish.
I then got to work adding some variation to the pre-shading, opting to scatter some different colours on select panels. In the end this effect was not as apparent as I had hoped but It’s still fun to play around with new approaches to techniques. The next step would be to begin blending everything together in two blend coats. The first was a thinned down coat of Mr. Color JASDF “Light Blue Impulse” which tinted the pre shading to be more in line with the final colours.
After this was done, I then tried a new technique that I have been wanting to for some time now, the layered ink patina technique. This is done by utilizing liquidex acrylic inks to achieve even further surface variation. This technique was popularized by Modeller Kris Sieber (@Luftraum72) who has a great guide on how to utilize this approach available on his website.
With the many pre-shading layers done, It was time to apply the final camouflage coats to the model and see if all the prior work was worth it. To do this I utilized two main shades, the first was SMS Midnight blue, the second being the aforementioned Light Blue Impulse from Mr. Color. I applied the light blue shade first, taking care not to overlap with the darker areas so not to overpower the pre-shading. I was fairly happy with how this turned out and I think that my approach here captured the duality of this distinctive scheme, in that it is incredibly vivid and striking yet also faded and worn at the same time.
With this initial camouflage coat down, I then turned my attention to other areas that needed to be addressed. This included adding color discoloration to selected panels, painting the markings as well as the radome and anti-glare shield. Also of note was one of the scheme decals, a triangular graphic present on the tail of this aircraft. I opted to apply this decal at this time because from reference photos I could tell that it was very faded and barely noticeable on the real aircraft. To recreate this effect, I chose to paint over the applied decal prior to sealing my work in a gloss varnish
With the two fuselage halves joined work on the Phantom progressed to a new stage. Next up was the painting of the metallic surfaces and the exhausts. I chose to start work in this area because I knew that I wanted to polish the plastic surface in preparation for paint, leaving this step later on in the painting process would have made this difficult.
With the bare plastic giving off a nice shine, I then hit the area with a coat of GX2 Ueno Black, my go to option for gloss black.
With this step complete, I then got to work on the actual metallic shades, selecting a mix of Mr. Color Super Metallics and Tamiya Lacquers. After playing around with the shades I had available, I was feeling pretty confident in the result I had achieved.
After the exhaust work was completed, I was able to move on to preparing the fuselage for paint. This consisted of attaching the wings and completing work around the canopy. This also included attaching the intakes which required a significant amount of sanding and putty work to ensure that they followed the contours of the main fuselage. This also meant completing work on the cockpit area, namely the sunshield and rear bulkheads To add detail in this area, I opted to apply some aftermarket rivet decals.
With the completion of the cockpit, next up was the nose gear bay. Like the cockpit, the gear bay was really lacking detail and not up to a modern standard. There was also the fact that there were several prominent sink marks that were unfixable without removing the molded detail. As such, I broke the chisel out and completely removed it all. I can’t lie, this was fairly nerve wracking as I wasn’t sure if I could pull off scratchbuilding something as complex as a gear bay. After a trip to my LHS, I was well armed with small pieces of styrene and got to work replacing the detail that I had hacked away.
I started with replacing the substantial bracing structures with styrene replacements along with a brass tube to depict an actuator arm. After getting these initial pieces into place I was pretty confident that the end result would look acceptable and was pretty happy with these initial results. I was however, confronted with another problem that needed to be solved; the main gear strut. With the way I wanted to attach the brass actuator arm, it would require being fed through the main gear strut. The problem? The arm would then block the strut from being put in place later on in the build. I wanted to keep the strut off the built until later on in the painting and weathering phase as it being glued in place would interfere with the masking and painting of the gear bay. To solve this problem, I opted to cut the strut after gluing the lower section in place. I was sure to add a metal rod to help with the alignment down the line.
Next up was the camera bay. With this being a RF-4E variant, I wanted to do the extra work and open up the camera bay so that all the cameras would be visible. This required some additional scratchbuilding as the kit does not allow the bay to be opened out of the box. I started by adding some structural bracing to the interior of the bay along with the various computers that are stored in the nose. I also did some work to the cameras themselves and hollowed out the lenses to depict a more concave shape that you would see in an actual camera lens.
With the bay being posed open I really wanted the camera equipment to be well detailed. To make sure they were, I utilized lots of placard decals to make them look the part. I was particularly happy with how the lenses turned out as I used circular decals to depict different components of the lens. I also added some clear green and clear blue as it was clear from reference photos that the lenses had colour coatings when they hit the light right. With the completion of the camera bay it was time to seal up the fuselage!
