JKim's Completed Builds (Restored..Again!)

[speedgraflex]

John's photos are loading just fine at the moment, Thomas. John, your gallery continues to surprise and delight with beautiful finished works. Your work is inspired and inspiring! Also, your friend is very lucky... my first thought upon reading your introduction to this build was, "How do I get on the list!" Your work is exceptional, and shows a real progression of integrity and fortitude. You go deep when you build, regardless of the parameters you set for modifications. I assume you made the decisions for a "minimal upgrade" to this kit, correct? How do you define your needs for adding afternarket, and have you ever built a project "out of box" from a sense of self discovery? Thank you for posting!

[jkim]

Thanks everyone! Thanks Bruce! No ideas on the mistake? It's not the rear-view mirror that I forgot to attach to the top of the windshield but something that is very obvious but also subtle if you are not familiar with Mustangs.

Accuracy is nice but it is not the most important thing to me. Overall impression is much more important. When I build a 1/48 scale aircraft, I want it to compare favorably to a 1/32 scale build. When I build in 1/32 scale, I want to include things that aren't possible at smaller scales. I want my current build to be better than my past builds. Those kinds of things are on my mind, as opposed to "all of the panel lines are correct and every hatch is represented". I still consider myself a novice and have not yet built that many kits yet so many of the upgrades that I include are ones that I am personally curious about.

I'm not sure I would ever build a kit strictly "out-of-the-box" unless it was some sort of group build or exercise. Outside of the Eduard Profipack series, very few kits include seat harnesses, which I consider mandatory. And I'll usually want to deviate from the kit-supplied markings. So the aftermarket ball begins rolling at that point. My current Dora build is the first one where I let it roll ALL THE WAY and left virtually no aftermarket stone unturned. And that's more of an exception for me, I'd say. I usually weigh the benefit/cost and stop at a few items but all of my builds will include seat belts, aftermarket decals and canopy masks (if available).

Sorry if the photos aren't showing up. Probably Photobucket... they are well known for periodic outages.

[speedgraflex]

John, you mentioned an obvious mistake; and about the only thing that seems off would be the landing gear doors don't seem to fit their openings, the flat edge should be reoriented, maybe the positions need to be switched. I don't know. My eye was drawn to the landing gear because it looked kind of spindly... too small. Maybe it's the angle of the shots, though, side views from a higher angle forshorten the image. I give up! What mistake?

[jkim]

Bingo! Very well done Bruce! The landing gear doors were indeed installed incorrectly and should be swapped left/right. The front edge of the the door should be straight and roughly parallel to the wing's leading edge. A big boo boo and I was very embarrassed that it escaped my notice!


I made the change once I was discretely informed via private message. The rear view mirror was also added. A brief note on the build... I did go to the trouble of filling in some of the wing panel lines since the Mustang was known to have had treated seams.

[Stikpusher]

Ok, my guess would be the Gray on the bottom of the wings. Usually if OD was applied to the uppers on a NMF, the lowers were left bare metal, and in the case of a P-51, the lower wings were aluminum lacquer.

[jkim]

I think I was consistent with that statement, Carlos. I used this image as a guide when filling in the panel lines on the wings. The lighter grey areas were the puttied areas and known to be painted with aluminum lacquer while the darker areas were left bare metal.


To replicate the aluminum lacquer, I used Tamiya AS-12 Silver decanted from the spray can and sprayed through my airbrush. It may appear to be grey but it is not.

[Stikpusher]

well I sure can't fault you there. John, you definitely know your stuff.

[speedgraflex]

hey, wait did I guess correctly? I had thirty minutes for lunch and all I did was study your photos with close attention... I did! Cool. Wow. I want a prize, lol. I jest, of course. I just felt something was off with the covers, not the struts, aesthetically, at first than I could not figure out how the gear would fold up into the plane, so, cool. I was wondering if you figured out why this may have happened because it is not like you to do something like this, not from perfection, but you do pay close attention to detail, so I was wondering why. Maybe, it's not very important, but I was thinking about why... I was thinking it may be because wheel covers on the Tank and Dora for example, have the same orientation... it was my post lunch speculation today at any rate. Congratulations on this build! Also, that is a really cool illustration of the wings, wow, that is a beautiful drawing and easy to understand which is a sign of good artwork, in my humble opinion.... Cheers, gents.

[mostrich]

John, aside from your marvelous builds I'm admiring your photography. How many light sources do you use and how much comes post processing into play?

Regards,
Torben

[Thomas_M]