Color sample test

RAAF Medium Sea Grey

US Navy Intermediate Blue

US Navy Medium Grey

Finnish Air Force F-18 Hornet 1/72 Italeri

An OK kit by Italeri with lots of options: 1-seat or 2-seater, Swiss, Finnish and US Air Force decals. I was quite pleased when my kids brought me this kit as a present.





Used some walkaround picture references with this kit, IIRC there were some issues with Finnish version specific details with this kit. Didn't fix any of them though, I'm a civil airliner modeller after all!




Painted with Iwata HP-C and Humbrol enamels, US grays were supposed to be right straight from the bottle but I think they are a bit dark for this scale. Or is it just my imagination?





Some weathering could be applied, on the other hand the Finnish machines are extremely well-kept.

Finnish Air Force Brewster B-239 1/72 Revell

This kit is the infamous FAF decal boxing of a Revell oldie, the "Rivet Monster". Built straight out-of-the-box but with a twist, instead of the camouflage scheme this is how the planes looked right after the transfer flight from Sweden.






Didn't do any major surgery, just improved tiny things like the cabin interior and such. The wing is too narrow, fuselage too short, stabilisers are wrong shape etc. so too much work for a small scale model.






I doubt if this model would be any more accurate with British roundels and RAF Asian camouflage, but the kit was cheap and it's not totally awful for a Brewster.





I mean, it clearly isn't a Hurricane or a Messerschmitt, right?

Canadian Armed Forces F-101CB Voodoo 1/72 Revell

Another airbrushing practice target, this Canadian One-Oh-Wonder became a testbed for simulating matted aluminium. First layers of aluminium paint didn't work out too well, but mixed with flat white it looked convincingly dull by accident. Since the Canadian Voodoos were old surplus USAAF planes to begin with, I ditched the USAF decals and used the CAF instead.

Final topcoat is semi-matt acrylic varnish, which sealed the decals nicely. This model was built without any other references than the instruction sheet, so it is by no means an exactly accurate representation of the Canadian Voodoos.




I don't know if this kind of weathering is actually possible on a fuel tank, but it sure was fun to simulate!







Ditto for the airframe, note the crisp and thin Revell decals.






I liked this kit actually quite a lot, it isn't bad at all for the 1/72 scale.