SPA Modeler

I was definitely a nerd in HS. As for fishing and girls, here it is:

A guy sends a want ad for a woman who likes to fish. He ends with "Send picture of boat".

And an R/C modeler friend from Australia who was in the market for a new wife: "I have looked all over the world for a woman who likes model airplanes, and I did find two...but they were both really "not good looking." (He used another word for the last three but I'm trying to be kinder and gentler.)

Proud to be a NERD!

I'm obsessed with painting lures with the crackle pattern. Or obsessed with "trying". It is REALLY difficult to get consistent crack patterns on both sides of lures. I'm averaging one success after 5-6 tries. The funny thing about the failures is that the crackle medium (which is similar to white glue) forms a thin, elastic "skin" over the base color. It can be peeled off, leaving that base coat intact, which reduces the work. Similar to when your skin peels after getting sunburned.

I've developed a color pattern using the crackle finish that I call Zombie...

Very nice work!

HA! I'd call it the Rob Zombie Special! In case you dont know who Rob Zombie is...

jkim wrote:Mostly airbrushed. The crawfish is hand-drawn with a permanent pen. Ironically, it was lure painting that got me back into scale modeling a few years back. About 10 years ago, I started painting lures and pulled my old airbrush out of storage and bought an incredibly noisy air compressor from Walmart. That led me to consider building a model again after many many years and here we are! The latest lure-painting binge was spurred by my Portrait craft cutter and using it to create masks and logos. The two don't seem related but there is some common ground that can spur some creative impetus.

Very cool John, that's some lovely airbrush work.

Oh I think there's a lot of cross over in most hobbies - especially craft based ones - one thing leads to another and so on.

Heh... now I want the sharkmouth and the "Rob" Zombie fishing lures.

Heh... now I want the sharkmouth and the "Rob" Zombie fishing lures.
I'll even buy the lures and send them to you.

Thanks guys! As promised, I've had some time this weekend to forge ahead with this Tomcat build. Before I paused, I had added some wiring in the nose wheel well to replicate some, if not all, of the myriad of hydraulic and electrical lines present in the real aircraft. Just a little bit to knock the detailing above what you would find with the kit parts alone.

The wheel wells are typically white. Instead of just using one shade of white, I elected to use an off-white (which is a it yellowish) as a base and utilize other light colors including regular white to introduce some contrast. The off-white was sprayed over a black to try and get some shadow effect.


The wheel well components after some brush painting.


After the brush painting, the components were given a gloss coat, a dark brown pastel wash and finally a flat coat to seal it all.


The wheel well was glued together after the flat coat. Due to the black base and the pastel wash, the off-white turned out a little bit darker than I wanted... more of a light grey. Some of the bigger components within the wheel well were lightly dabbled and dry-brushed with a neutral gray to impart some wear.





Now that the wheel wells and cockpit are complete, they can be mounted within the forward fuselage halves.

love the detail! Snazzy.

I'm truly at a loss for words on the wheel well. I bow to the master.