1/72 Hasegawa VF-0S Step-by-step...

[wm cheng]

Unfortunately during all the handling, I tore off that nose pilot tube. I knew it was going to happen when I glued them on in a much earlier step, but I had to do it early on since I wanted a good bond between the plastic (before it was painted) and I wanted an oil wash and post-shading to occur at the valley where the probe meets the radome. It was a hard decision back then, normally I always leave the fragile things till the very end, but they always looked tacked on, and often fell off since it wasn't properly glued in the first place (worst, often it would ruin the painted surface or take some paint with it when it fell off). I don't think I have a single model that has a pilot's tube intact

[wm cheng]

Here it is drying after another clear-coat to protect the very fragile and thin post-shading work. I highly recommend a clear-coat after the post-shading, since often its just a light dusting of paint, it can scratch off.

[wm cheng]

A close up of the intakes with the grey painted separation at the hip.

[wm cheng]

Man I love the tailcones, thanks for the idea to do the ribs - I love them. I also drew in some pencil lines on the top part of the leg to restore that ridge that kind of gotten lost in all that sanding and defined some very light panel lines. The pencil lines are sealed in under the clear coat to prevent them from being rubbed away.

[wm cheng]

A profile shot...

[wm cheng]

A black wash on the landing gears to pick out some detail, I'll do a brown rust/hydraulic leak wash afterwards.

Another great Hasegawa innovation, the rear main gear hubs are molded separately from the tires, hallaluah!! Too bad the front gera wheels aren't like that too.

By the way, that can on the front gears, is that the brake fluid reservoir? What colour should it be? I still need to apply the Tamyia chrome maker to the bare metal actuator struts.

[wm cheng]

Here's the doors edged in red, I love this Sharpie marker (you can get them at most Staples or Business Depots) it has two ends, a fine and broad tip. The hardest part was continuing the red edge pass the hinges, I had to scrape some of the paint off to eliminate some excess red on the hinge tabs.

[wm cheng]

I sprayed the front wheels white and applied the dark wash on them to pick out the details. Actually, I applied the wash first thinking I'd be lazy and use the white plastic of the wheels as is - but it looked plasticy translucent. So I painted over it, and it was good since the original wash was a bit too dark. The trick to doing these wheels and getting a good separation between the white hubs and the black rubber is doing this black wash, the wash gets into the crevice between the hub and plastic, then when I hand brush the flat black on the tires, I don't have to go right up to the edge of the hub, I let the black oil wash do that for me.

[wm cheng]

Oh, sorry Hikuro - didn't mean to ignore your question, but I'm not sure I understand the situation. (you know, you should strip paint with the solvents instead of sanding it off). If my read is right, you sanded the paint, but that left the old paint in the engraved panel lines showing through - and you are asking if you can still do the oil wash in the panel lines to show up? Well, that depends on how much of the engraved lines are still a recess after they have been filled with your old paint. If you stripped the paint with a solvent (one that doesn't eat at plastic) and a toothbrush, you could get all the paint out of the crevices and that would leave deep enough engraved troughs to hold the oil wash details. If the paint in the panels have filled the tiny lines then no - the oil wash would be useless since there is really nothing for the oil to sit in.

[wm cheng]

Hey here's another reference on the weathing - look, the streaking is definitely not in the direction of the airflow - pretty dirty bird if you ask me How would I attempt to get that surface mottling - I see a lot of recent tomcats like that, its more than just paint patches?

[David Hingtgen]

You're modeling too fast for me too keep up!

Anyways:

1. The "humps" are obviously inspired by the F-14's glove stiffeners, but for the VF-0 appear to be either conformal tanks, avionics humps, or simply bulges for internal fuel. In real-life, the odds definitely favor avionics humps, but since the Macross universe has such high-tech stuff, it's unlikely.(and the fact that there's TWO of them) Also, since we've never seen them off--my vote is that they are actually permanently attached fuel tanks. Remind me a lot of a CV-990's Kuchemann fairings that way.

2. Well, the "weathering reference" pic has the wings at mid-sweep. The streaking appears to match the airflow when the wings are completely un-swept. So the question is--at what wing position does weathering tend to occur? My answer: wings don't tend to weather much. But the basic rule (for real planes) is that weathering goes straight back, with the airflow. Even if some fluid is dripping down, the streak will go STRAIGHT back. 500mph air tends to influence liquids a lot. (most "weathering streaks" on a plane are something leaking, just a little, somewhere).

3. The cylinder on the nose gear is almost certainly for steering. It should stay white. Nose-gears very rarely have brakes, BTW. Most SAAB planes do though.

4. ::edit:: new weathering pic---rant time, but I think a LOT of model planes are over-weathered, and not very accurately. It looks nice, and brings out the detail, but it still doesn't look "right" to my "airplane-lover's eye". (panel lines are rarely seen, it's the rivets you see, if anything) And that CGI is just wrong. A locomotive would look like that, not a plane. That plane is simply DIRTY, not weathered. Maybe it's based in a coal mine or something.

5. You want mottling? Go here, best I've ever seen, with step-by-step instructions. I plan to do a Hornet like that, someday, when I have 5x my current skill. http://s96920072.onlinehome.us/Fea1/901-10..._Gok/fea901.htm And here's how he did it: http://s96920072.onlinehome.us/tnt1/101-20..._Gok/tnt119.htm

6. It's spot-painting. Navy doesn't allow "whole panel" painting, only the EXACT spot that needs it gets it. And they will use whatever color's available. And even if they do use the "right" color, it won't match due to fading.

Edited April 22, 2004 by David Hingtgen

[David Hingtgen]

Ack, forgot my reference pic--shows both red edges, and a nice blue nav light.

[Akula]

That pic may be of Roy's plane after he miraculousely survived that rock-slide that Ivanoff created...

Looking great Mr. Cheng!!

Question: What kind of airbrush do you use... I used to be content with my old badger... but now that my skills are progressing... I find it can't do fine lines that well, and am looking to upgrade.

[Grayson72]

Fantastic article David, thanks!

[Hikuro]

Well it's odd, see, I had painted the leggings....or intake covers which ever you wanna call it, not a jet expert. After the paint had dried, some areas weren't even so I thought if I sanded off the paint a bit I could make it a bit more even.

Well the sandpaper I got is that wet/dry type which my friend gave me at work a few months ago when I was working on a Mitsubishi LanEvo.

So I wetted the sandpaper and brushed it against the cover pieces and rubbed it enough the paint was coming off, but some how the paint stayed sunk into the panel lines, I'd take a picture if I could, digicam is broken for good.

I repainted over it sadly so no way I can show it again, but it was very interesting to me that it happened. Talked to my friend Tim about it, and he thought it sounded cool along with the idea of painting the pieces black, than sanding off the paint and still keeping the black painted lines...just a theory I had.

I made a very large mistake when I was painting the upper half of the arms on my VF-1 today, I didn't mask it all (I only got clear tape) and painted the whole thing red by mistake...so I'm gonna have to wait for it to completely dry, and either strip the red off the arms or mask the shoulders off and repaint the arms back to it's Matt white look...

Anyways, The head unit's been painted, I had a mistake on the thrusters so I had to sand off a bit of the paint and touch it up, should be done by now, the paint dries really quick. Parts of the intake valves are painted but I'm gonna have to mask those off so I can paint the rest of the body...also painting the rear wings, it should look very cool if it came out right...which reminds me I gotta switch sides so I can get the other ends coated.

I'm using Italian red, which isn't very bright but gives it a VERY rich red tone which I like...and it doesn't cover up the panel lines compared to TESTOR's red spray paint. I'm using ALL Tamiya paint wohoo! cost me 20 bucks!

[Graham]

Here's a close up, I shaded those (conformal fuel tanks? what are they David/Graham?)

The Leg FAST Packs on the VF-0S are supposed to hold extra fuel and also each pack contains 24 micro-missiles. You can see the three hexagonal exit ports for the micro-missiles on each pack (two at the front and one aft), so pressumably each of the three launchers hold 8 micro-missiles.

The leg FAST pack is also supposed to be able to hold a spare magazine for the gunpod, but it's not clear if this is in addition to the fuel and micro-missiles or whether it replaces one of them.

The Macross Compendium has the following to say: -

"two atmospheric combat super parts (micro-missile launcher/conformal tanks with twenty-four Raytheon Erlikon GH-30B I/IR-guided micro-missiles each) mounted on leg/engine pods. The super part is also capable of storing spare magazine for the gun pod".

Graham

[wm cheng]

Wow, thanks David, what fantastic articles - now I have something to aspire to. I've always loved that mottled grey look, now with that weathing tip, I can finally start on that 1/72 F-14 (if only I had the time).

I will try to adapt those tips to this VF-0, except it should be a little more weathered than real-life, since I want it more animation/cgi accurate. This would be a good test bed for the F-14 later on. However, I don't have the skills or control of do those panel mottling details on a 1/72 scale. My wife would kill me if I started building 1/32 planes!! Also, I don't want to turn the VF-0 grey, it is essentially a white plane with streaks. I'll omit the mottling this time around, and concentrate on the streaking and same colour over coat to blend it in, but I might try some mottling then in the over coat when blending. Oh, well, I'll revise my previous estimates, the post-shading that you guys saw represents 25% of the finished product.

Thanks Graham, I meant the two bulges on the top of the plane on the "front/back" plate. I think they are optional, since there is very good panel line detail underneath them on the Hasegawa model (just that we've never seen a VF-0 without them).

I'll try to post some pictures of the pastel streaks later today.

Edited April 23, 2004 by wm cheng

[Less than Super Ostrich]

I'm waaaay late with this question WM. when you masked the air intakes to spray them with a metalizer, did you have any problem with masking tape destroying the base white coat? I always have problem with this. i thought if I use a primer or maybe I have to let it cure longer?

[wm cheng]

Hey LTSO, my brakes came out fine, I use Tamiya masking tape, which helps - I also don't leave it on too long or press too hard. What is your white undercoat - I find that really glossy finishes tend to mar slightly with the masking tape - or anything else for that matter. Thats why I like working with semi-gloss finishes - its seems to be more resistant to abuse.

Funny you should mention being based in a coal mine David I thought I'd try sketching charcoal, I used an xacto knife to scrape away some filings to dab onto the plane.

[wm cheng]

Argh! it didn't really work - the chalkiness of it wiped off too easily

You hardly see it, and with any further handling (even just to get a clear-coat on to protect it) it just about dissapears.

Oh well, please bear with me as I experiment on this phase. I think its off to an art store for some supplies...

[wm cheng]

Ok, shortly thereafter... and $32 poorer, we get our supplies. Man its been a while since I bought skteching supplies. I didn't want to make the trip back so I bought a little of everything that might work.

Starting from the left working our way right: 3 sticks of conte, a rectangular kneadable eraser, pencil sharpener, oil pastels, 3 pastel/chalk in pencil form, and a thin and fat shaders. I'm kind of excited about the pencil pastel/chalks, it allows precise control (literally we can draw the oil streaks on) and can be smeared with the shaders/smudge sticks (essentially paper compressed and wrapped into a tube with a sharpened end).

Well, the oil pastels were totally useless, they were too oily to be shaved into any type of fine particles to be used. But my gut feeling on these pencil pastel/chalks worked. I included white in purchases since I need to weather down the black talkfins and markings after I apply the decals.

[wm cheng]

I just lightly drew some oil streaks in the direction of airflow.

[wm cheng]

Then used a paper towel to wipe in the direction of airflow which blends it in and creates the faded tail. I also wiped some in the vertical direction top to bottom on the service hatches to simulate leakage during flight operations on the ground.

I experimented on this inside part of the leg first - since you don't really see much of it when its glued in tucked beside the arms.

[wm cheng]

How's this - its actually a bit more heavier in real life, the camera misses some of the finer details - its a bit odd every takes on a warmer tone.

[wm cheng]

I use an xacto knife to scrape away at the pencil to create shavings/dust in a plastic container (battery packaging bubble) that I can brush on for general darkening not specific leaks.

[wm cheng]

Specific leaks I drew on lightly - I took David's suggestion and made the leaks in the direction of airflow when the wings are fully extended. This is a comprimise, since the CGI model (believe me I've looked carefully) wings streak at a nearly perpenticular angle to the trailing edge of the wings (not even fully extended would the airflow be in this direction!)

[wm cheng]

I then used the smudge stick / shader to smudge the drawn oil streaks in the desired direction - then I use a paper towel to also wipe in the same direction. If I had to much, I would rub it with a damp paper towel or use the kneadable eraser.

[Grayson72]

Hey looks great WM, too bad you didn't see my 1/72 Defender build up, I used the exact same technique and it worked like a charm. Coulda saved ya some money.

[wm cheng]

I noticed that on the CGI model, there are darker spots in the panelling especially around certain junctions where a few panel lines meet. I use the shavings and dab a dry brush into it and work the dust into the areas lightly where I want it to be darker.

[wm cheng]

Well there it is - I just repeated the above process all over the aircraft, trying to duplicate the CGI reference where I could. Actually, the photos looks light, its actually more heavily weathered than this. I post the reference I used below this image.

[wm cheng]

Here's my reference.

I know David, its too heavily weathered - but hey not all aircraft have to survive an avalanche of rocks and debris

[wm cheng]

Close up of the back.

[wm cheng]

The whole plane looks a little grey now - its not what I really wanted. I wanted a weathered white plane (well slightly off-white, very light grey) Its gotta eventually go next to my VF-1 on the flightline.

[wm cheng]

I just remembered that excellent article that David pointed us to about Naval weathering, it suggested another coat of the base colour to tie everything together. I thought this might be my chance ot lighten the whole bird up again. So I mixed a very vicous (lots of thinner 60:40) gloss white and lightly dusted the entire model with it, concentrating to hit the highpoints and areas where I wanted to tone down the post-shading and weathering. I like it a lot more now - everything ties together much more nicely. Although its still really dirty (a little too weathered for my taste) - but I think its pretty close to the animation now. I think I'm ready for decalling soon - woohoo! There will be another dusting to tie the decals in as well as weathering on top of them - but thats another story for later. I just want to glue those damn legs onto the fuselage - I guess I've got to decal the inner calf black stripes and the grey portion on top of the legs before I can make this bird whole again.

Must take a break, goint to see "13 going on 30" with the wife tonight (Jennifer Garner)

[Angel's Fury]

I always prefer weathering to no weathering,

Noel

Yeah! It definitely adds age to it.