nose
aft side
aft
bottom
coming at you
front nude
engine nude
top nude
side nude
basic construction
basic construction top
main components
nose
aft side
aft
bottom
coming at you
front nude
engine nude
top nude
side nude
basic construction
basic construction top
main components
This fighter started as an old camera body and some sort of telephone or other small electronics stand, donated by professional modeller Richard Mark. In fact nearly all the parts came from his latest donation since (a) I needed to artificially limit the parts pool so as to force myself to work quickly, and (b) I couldn't get to any of my other parts without a lot of re-arranging and effort. It was also slightly inspired by The Pig from 2007 though, in this case, it contained a lot fewer weapons.
The camera body front was a near perfect size for the electronics-mount so I just had to use them. Besides, it let the ship extend into another dimension - Down - Instead of remaining contracted around the camera body. The inclusion of the canon legs as booms for fins pretty-much finished defining the overall dimensions of the ship. After that it was just filling-in parts here and there.
The Star Wars-like canopy resulted from a plastic container just fitting right there in the center. The fins were easy to shape - I just traced the shape of the stand. The guns were from a fourty-year-old 1/32 scale BF-109E that I'd built and scrapped for parts while I was still little more than a kid.
Everything was going along so well that I decided to throw myself a curve. Richard included a plastic wagon wheel that fit perfectly into an old large-sized gum machine dome which in turn was the same size as the indentation in hte back of teh stand. A truck wheel half was the perfectly-sized mountpoint for it on the ship, so I risked [or maybe succeeded in] ruining the overall design of the ship and used them. After that it was a scramble to find parts to keep it from looking so plain that I'd be frced to do panelling.
Painting started with my beloved ModelMaster Intermediate Blue over a gray basecoat that was almost the exact same intensity if only a slightly different hue. I knew I was going to paint the fins yellow after seeing the movie "Red Tails". Besides, I have a lot of USN black insignia decals, some of them angled, so I thought their use would be serendipitous. After that, it was just the usual search to find stuff to fill-in some of the spaces, much like the detail parts application.
I don't know, but I think next time I'll be a little less courageous with the engines.
