- Welcome to the Video Workbench classic series
instructional video How to Build Jet Aircraft.
Now you can learn all the techniques for building
great looking jet aircraft straight from the box
without buying expensive aftermarket detailing parts.
From instrument panels to camouflage,
surface detailing to decals,
you'll learn skills that will make
any modern military aircraft model a show stopper.
Even though originally produced in 1992,
the techniques used in this video still cover
everything you need to get going with your model kit.
The examples shown here really haven't changed too much.
There is no definitive way of building a model kit.
Everyone has their own way of doing things
and with time, so will you.
This video teaches dozens of useful tips,
no matter what your skill level,
including what I consider the three import T's
of model kit building, tips, tools, and techniques.
I would like to talk a little bit about
the instructor in this video, Chris Wilson.
Chris Wilson is a professional prototype model builder.
He has won dozens of first place regional,
state and national IPMS modeling contests
for his science fiction and jet aircraft models.
I hope by watching this video that you walk away
with a better knowledge of how to safely
and correctly assemble a plastic model kit
along with having found or coming back into a hobby
that is very fun and rewarding.
Thank you and enjoy.
(upbeat music)
- [Man] Build only in a well-ventilated area.
Protective eyewear and a breathing apparatus
should be worn at all time.
- Hi, I'm Chris Wilson
and I'll be your host on Video Workbench.
In front of me is my MiG-29 Fulcrum in 132 scale.
This model has won seven awards including first place
in out-of-box at the IPMS Nationals in St. Louis.
I've been going to model contests for 12 years
and am currently employed as a prototype model maker.
I'm about to show you the various techniques I use
to build my models as well as give you some hints and tips
at what judges are looking for at contests.
I'll be using the MiG to demonstrate with,
but you can use these techniques to make any jet aircraft
look great and hopefully win some awards too.
So let's begin.
(upbeat music)
Now there are some must-have tools for hobbying
including hobby knives,
sandpaper ranging from 220 to 1200 grit wet or dry,
an old toothbrush, various types of tape
including drafting tape, fine line automotive tape,
scotch transparent tape, Post-it notepads,
an airbrush, super glue and liquid cement,
various sizes of brushes including a dust brush
as well as bottle caps to help you mix your paint in,
some needle files.
Some other items that are nice to have include tweezers,
an artist's inking pen,
a scribe tool as well as a steel ruler, a pen vise,
drill bits, small drill bits ranging in size from 60 to 80,
a punch and die set is useful
for punching circles out of decal paper, plastic.
(upbeat music)
You'll also need some reference material.
Laid out in front of me I've got several magazines
that you can pick up at your local hobby shop.
You can pick up videotapes at your hobby shops
as well as record stuff from TV.
A&E, Discovery, PBS all run good shows on aircraft.
Air shows are a good source.
Also have to choose a color scheme.
This is partially dependent on what decals are available.
For the MiG, I chose the Iraqi markings
and fortunately they were available.
I've got in front of me my reference materials,
which I've studied and familiarized myself
with the aircraft.
I've got the major pieces, which I'll be cutting
from the trees and test fitting.
I've got my instructions, which I don't recommend
following the construction sequence there.
Things like landing gear, tail cones, missiles
we'll save for a later point.
What I want to do is construct the model
to a point where it's ready to paint.
(upbeat music)
I've got in front of me all the parts
of the cockpit laid out.
I've got the instructions here as a reference.
I've got my photos, reference photos from various sources
and I'm preparing the parts.
As described earlier, I'm removing the mold seam
that runs around all the parts.
The sprue attachment points, I'm removing those.
I've gone ahead and spray painted
two halves of an ejection seat black here.
I'm gonna demonstrate dry brushing
using the black and some white.
Come in and take some black, little bit of white,
put the white off to the side
and I want to lighten the black just a little bit.
So I'm coming up with a dark gray shade.
Now...
I'm gonna take and dry the brush on a paper towel.
Till you're getting very little paint sticking.
So we've got an almost dry brush here.
We'll come in and just hit the part lightly
and what this does, the paint sticks to the high spots,
starting to lighten the higher spots.
(spray gun hissing)
We'll let that dry for a few minutes
and you'll be able to see the difference.
This ejection seat has already been dry brushed.
The cushions have been dry brushed
with olive drabs going from dark to light.
It's already been dull coated.
The sides have been dry brushed from dark to light
using the black and white
and we're ready to put seat belts on this seat.
And I'm gonna be using watercolor paint.
I've got some black here.
Put a little dab in a beer cap.
I use the watercolor to pick out small details and lines.
I like using watercolor because it's not permanent.
If you make a mistake, you can clean it off pretty easily.
Get a little bit and just touch it to a line
and allow it to flow into the lines.
I'm not worried about slop.
Because it's watercolor, it's easily removable.
I'll come in and remove that stuff in a moment.
I'm getting a nice hard outline
around all the gauges, instruments
that otherwise would have to be carefully hand painted.
This makes things much easier.
Okay, I'm gonna come in and clean off
the excess watercolor paints using a damp Q-tip.
Okay, now we've got the outlines of the gauges
painted with watercolor black.
Painting the insides will be much easier.
I'm coming in with black enamel.
And we'll just fill in the blanks.
Now I'm gonna come in and paint the gauges with white,
the numbers and dials.
A little bit of white oil paint
and then oil paint's easier to paint small details with
because it stays wet on your brush longer.
Just a little bit on the brush.
Adding color to cockpits.
When you look at photos of a cockpit,
there usually isn't a whole lot of color,
but you do need some.
In this case, I've got some color photos
so I'm just gonna match what's in the photo.
A little bit dab of red here.
Just a little bit of color.
Too much color usually looks kinda hokey.
To simulate the glass over the top of the gauges,
I'm gonna come in, put a little bit of gloss coat on.
In this case, I would say don't use any gloss you want.
Definitely use something water base
so the gloss doesn't soften your lacquers and clear coats
and distort your detail painting.
Okay, raised details,
I use more or less a dry brush technique.
I've got more paint on the brush
than I would use for dry brushing.
I come in and lay the brush on its edge,
come across and pick out the highlights.
I'm using a large brush
just moistened with a little bit of paint thinner.
Come in and wet the surface
and I'm coming in with a wash of gray oil
thinned with Turpenoid
and I'm gonna touch it to the corners and allow it to flow,
flow out.
Just touching spots here and there and it'll connect itself.
Now I'm going to dirty the cockpit up
and add some shadows with chalk pastel.
What I've got here is a stick of black chalk pastel.
Using the edge of a knife,
I'm gonna scrape a little bit of powder off,
take some pastel...
and put it in where there would be shadow and dirt.
Adds some life to an otherwise flat surface.
The pastel should be applied over a surface
that's been previously dull coated or a flat paint.
They don't stick well to gloss paints.
Now, fitting our painted cockpit tub into the fuselage
we see that the sidewall here looks blank.
It's got some mold marks on it.
It needs something.
You can also see the top around the instrument shroud.
It looks thick and out of scale.
So what we can do,
come in...
thin the edges of this with file
or scrape it with an X-Acto till that's thin.
We'll come in and sand this molding defects
off the sidewall here.
I'm gonna paint some detail on there.
Now, in here you see I've sanded
the detail away on the sides,
come in and painted and penciled in small lines in here,
actually just pencil lead,
put some detail in there.
See I've got my pastels, I've got my washes.
Instrument panel, I've got the gauges glossed over.
I've already attached the control stick.
I've got the shroud thinned.
We're ready to go ahead and attach our ejection seat
and do our finishing details along the outside surfaces.
Now because I built my MiG
for out-of-the-box at the IPMS Nationals,
they don't allow any additions to the kit
except for paper seat belts and paper seat belt buckles,
no aftermarket buckles, no bent up wire buckles.
So what I'm doing here is cutting some strips
of in this case TV Guide.
Now I'm going to tape them down,
spray paint one side and spray paint the other side.
Cut them to length and glue them in.
Like I said, IPMS National's rules for out-of-the-box
don't allow aftermarket seat belt buckles.
So I'm gonna cut a little buckle,
a little bit of silver paint.
Okay, I'm taking the olive drab color
that I painted the seat belts with
and I'm gonna do a little bit of dry brushing,
a little bit of white.
Come up with a lighter shade.
This should be done in steps.
Going from your darker shade to your lighter shade
just like the dry brushing described earlier.
Okay, on the buckle,
paint where the little hole is
with a little spot of black paint.
Put a little dab of super glue
where you're gonna be attaching it.
Lower it right in there.
Position it carefully with a toothpick.
Now I've just added two belts here.
There's actually several belts, which I'll go on and add
and we'll go ahead and attach the seat
and put the canopy on.
Now looking at my reference photos,
I can see that there's some small labels,
miscellaneous stuff on the sides of the ejection seat
as well as throughout the cockpit.
So I'm gonna find some decals from my decal box.
Now I've picked the decal up on the tip of the brush
and using my reference photos,
that's about where it goes right there.
Most all modern jets have a heads-up display
of some sort or other.
There's a reflective surface under here
that shines the light up into a plate of glass
the pods look at
and to simulate that lens,
I'm gonna punch a disc of silver decal paper out
and apply that.
So what I've got here is a punch and die set,
some silver decal paper.
(banging)
Okay, so I've got my disc of silver decal material here.
I'm gonna go ahead and apply that.
Okay, before I attach the heads-up display,
I'm gonna go ahead and dry brush the shroud a little bit,
add a bit of life to it.
First, I'm gonna put the clear lens on.
Then I'm just gonna put a little bit
of that thinned out white glue right around the edge.
Just a little dab on each side.
Drop it in there.
The reason I'm using white glue
is because it dries clear.
This is what our heads-up display looks like
when it's attached.
We're now ready to attach the canopy.
(upbeat music)
(upbeat music)
Whenever possible, try and glue parts from the inside
where the glue seam won't show.
In this case, I'm using an artist's inking pen
to pick up some super glue.
And I'm gluing from the inside.
Now I'm gonna glue the cockpit in.
Once again, I'm gonna be gluing
from the inside of the fuselage.
To make things go quicker,
I'm gonna use some super glue accelerator.
A little shot and it's dry.
Go ahead and glue this from several points.
Now because I'm gonna close the canopy on this airplane,
I want to make sure no dust can get into the cockpit
through the inside of the fuselage.
So I'm gonna go around the edges of the cockpit
and seal this joint completely with white glue.
Now prior to gluing the fuselage together,
I'm gonna drill out the gun port here.
I've got a number 70 drill bit in this case and a pen vise.
And clean up the insides.
I'm gonna take advantage of the fact
that there's an opening in the nose
and I'm gonna put some super glue on the inside.
I'll use the Zip Kicker to accelerate the glue.
Flip it over and do the other side.
Come back and glue this in several places
using the super glue and the inking pen.
Now I'm going to reinforce this from the inside
and finish gluing my seam
by putting several drops of glue in
and allowing it to roll down the inside.
It should have flowed down the seam
and glued the seam all the way along the side.
I'll do this for both sides.
Now we're ready to go ahead and fill a seam.
There's a seam running along there
on the side of the fuselage and running back.
I'm gonna fill the seam with super glue.
What I'm doing is I'm gonna build the surface up
till the super glue...
Is just slightly higher than the surrounding plastic.
Now I don't like to use the accelerator
when I'm filling seams.
It tends to make the super glue
harder than the surrounding plastic.
And I'll fill a small portion of the seam at a time
and come back and sand it out.
Super glue gets harder as it dries.
We want to sand it out while it's still soft.
Now you can see I've built the super glue up
higher than the surface of the plastic.
Now we're ready to come and sand that out
and there should be no apparent seam when we're done.
Now we're gonna come and sand that super glue off.
(scraping)
I'm using 320 wet.
Try not to sand too far into the other areas.
Don't want to lose too much detail.
If we lose some detail, we can fix that up.
Now I'm gonna sand with some 400 wet.
(scraping)
Let's use some 600 wet.
Dry the model a little bit.
Now I'm taking a rag that has been soaked
in Brasso metal polish and allowed to dry.
This forms a nice polishing compound.
I'll lightly polish the plastic here.
I'm gonna hold it up to the light
to see whether I've filled my seam or not.
I'm holding this up and looking at it towards the light.
Using the reflection, you can see in here
that this area's not filled.
So I'm gonna come back and fill that area.
Okay, now looking at it towards the light again,
we can see that the seam is filled.
You can see that the area where I've got hot stuff
as a filler, but it's sanded out and polished
and now it won't show.
We have lost some panel lines.
We'll come back now and re-scribe those.
This side has not been filled.
Now I'm gonna re-scribe this line that we lost
around the fuselage here.
To begin, I'm using a curved blade.
Begin by laying it on the line here.
I'll scribe first of all a straight cut right around the top
so I've got a line to follow.
Now I'm going to form a V by cutting
first at one angle...
Then at the other angle.
I'm gonna use the old toothbrush
to help remove some of those burrs.
Now I'm gonna use a scribe tool
to come in and square that cut up,
taking really light passes.
Doing it at an angle first to help deepen that V groove.
And on my final pass,
I'll use a little bit of authority here to square it out.
Once again, grabbing a toothbrush.
Now I'm going to look at it towards the light
to make sure that it looks good.
Now I've lost some of the detail
around these hatches on the side of the fuselage.
I'm gonna use a compass point
to come back and re-scribe those.
Templates are available in different shapes,
but generally I'm gonna go ahead and use a straight edge
to get this one side
and I'll just lightly scribe it with a compass point.
I'm gonna take some 600 grit sandpaper,
sand some of that debris off of there,
grab the toothbrush, clean up the lines
and see where I'm at.
It's gonna take a little more scribing,
but it's just repeating the process
until you're happy with what you've got.
I'm ready to glue together the wings,
but before gluing it together,
I'm gonna cut a little hole here where it won't show
so that I can run some glue on the inside of the wing
to reinforce it.
Cut one towards the back of the wing too.
And I'll just glue the trailing edge.
The leading edge we can get from the inside.
A good point to make here
is thinning trailing edges of wings.
This kit is nice and thin and there's no work to be done.
Some kits, the trailing edge is much too thick for scale.
Okay now that we've got that glued together,
I'm gonna take the super glue, this hole that we made,
I'm just gonna put a couple drops inside the wing.
And I'm gonna let that run around the inside of the wing.
Okay, now I've blocked the wing up with my sanding block
and various thicknesses of sheet plastic
until I've come to something close to the same angle
that's shown in the three-view drawing
in one of my reference books.
I'm gonna go ahead and glue it in place using those blocks.
Now in preparing to glue this wing on,
I don't want to fill the area
between the flap and the fuselage
or the leaning edge slat and the fuselage with glue.
So I'm gonna take a little piece of clay.
Put a little piece of clay there to act as a damn.
Also try not to get too much glue in that area.
Take some super glue.
Make sure it's on the blocks.
Okay, I've still got the wing blocked up
and I'm coming back and filling the line up completely
and slightly overfilling it so we can sand this out
and eliminate our seam.
Okay, my glue's dried.
I'm ready to sand the seam out.
Now because I'm coming into a right angle right here,
I'm gonna fold a piece of sandpaper in half.
And sand right into that seam.
(scraping)
And this area where it becomes flush,
I'll go ahead and sand that
and I'll use my fingers to back it out.
I would block sand it, but it's not flat.
Now, I've sanded the seam out and polished it.
I'll come in and remove the debris
from all the surrounding lines with a toothbrush
to determine what needs to be re-scribed.
So I'm gonna come in here with a straight edge.
And because this is a nice flat surface,
I'll just go straight in with the scribe tool.
And what I just did there, I missed my line.
I used a knife blade and I scratched the surface.
Those are easily burnished out with a fingernail.
Press it back in and start over
and that shouldn't show.
Using light passes.
Now I've also lost some of my rivet detail up here.
I'm gonna grab my pen vise.
Grab a small drill bit.
When using really small drill bits,
it's best to have them
stick out of the pen vise just a little bit.
The further they stick out,
the better your chance of breaking them.
Now I'm gonna come in
and redrill the rivets that I sanded out or filled.
Just a few twists.
I've taken my reference book with the three-view drawing
and I've drawn lines across where the landing gear are
and on the vertical stabilizer, which are at a slight angle.
Now I've taken a piece of sheet plastic
and cut it to that angle.
I'm gonna use this as a template to make sure
that I get my vertical stabilizers lined up properly.
Now I'm gonna position it.
I'm taking my template
and I'm gonna look down the length of the fuselage.
I'm gonna line this up.
Now I'm gonna come in with some super glue
and tack it into place.
Add a couple tacks along the edge.
Then we'll come back and fill this seam.
And I'm gonna check it with my template again.
Okay, it looks right still.
So I'm gonna give it a quick shot of the accelerator.
Now, our stabilizers
are given the same block treatment as the wings
using the three-view drawing,
determining how many blocks to put under it
and we're not gonna fill this seam.
The reason I'm not going to fill the seams on the stabilizer
is that most modern fighters, the entire stabilizer moves.
So there would be a gap there.
(upbeat music)
Okay, what we're gonna do now
is remove the canopy from the tree.
Nice little trick I found for removing canopies
is to use a hot knife.
Take a candle and X-Acto knife, heat your blade up.
And carefully cut through the tree,
leaving a little bit excess
that we'll come back and file off.
Carefully file away the burrs.
The hot knife trick works especially well
when you have no canopy frame surrounding the canopy
like we've got here.
And if you don't use a hot knife,
you take a chance of stress fracturing the glass
and there's nothing you can do about that.
Okay, we've removed the burr with a file,
gotten it kinda close.
Now I'm coming in with some 400 wet
and I'm gonna block sand that down
till it's about flush.
Now a little bit of 600 wet.
Now a little 1200 wet.
Okay.
We've removed all the burrs.
We're ready to start polishing the canopy now.
Notice the difference between your unpolished canopy
and your polished canopy.
We're gonna get the lines underneath.
And an unpolished,
polished one.
Now I'm holding my canopy up to the light here
to see how much distortion I've got.
I've got a nice big scratch here
that looks like it may need some 600 grit to take it out.
I'll also hold a steel ruler up
to see the clarity of the lines.
Generally I'll start out with the lightest grit
to see if that does the trick.
I'm starting out with some 1200 wet
and I'm gonna begin with a circular motion
and sand the whole canopy out.
Now I'm gonna come in with this piece of t-shirt
soaked in Brasso metal polish.
When allow to dry, it forms a real fine powder,
polishing powder.
And just buff away.
Now this is a standard automotive polishing compound,
not very coarse.
It does get the trick done fast though.
Starting to get clear.
Now I'm gonna come back with just the Brasso.
It's a finer polish.
The more you rub, the shinier and smoother it'll get.
A good polished canopy attracts a lot of attention.
Come in finally with a clean t-shirt.
Really buff it nice and hard,
as hard as you can go without cracking the canopy.
It's definitely getting clearer than it was.
I can see that there's some distortion inside
so I'm gonna come back and polish the insides too.
Grabbing a fresh piece of 1200,
I'm gonna pull it over a sharp edge on the table.
This breaks the back on the sandpaper
so you can roll it up without the paper cracking on you.
Roll it as tight as you like.
Sanding the inside of the canopy.
If you can locate any big scratches that the 1200
isn't taking` out, go ahead and go over to 600
and scratch over in here with some 600 wet.
And we'll come back with an automotive
polishing compound again and polish it out.
(squeaking)
We polish our canopies because
the originals do tend to show some distortion
and a good test for this,
if you lay a steel ruler underneath
or even a piece of paper with typing on it,
if you look at one side and roll your head over,
you'll see that it does show distortion as you move
where the polished canopy doesn't show this distortion.
(upbeat music)
Okay, now I'm going to paint
the inside of the canopy frames.
On a larger scale model, this is not so hard to do.
I won't worry about covering it in one coat.
Basically want to work my way up to the line,
the glass frame demarcation line.
Here where I went over the line,
I'm gonna come in with a toothpick
and scrape some of that paint away.
Okay, now we're gonna use decals
to paint the insides of our canopy frame.
I've chosen a color of gray that's close to what I want.
And I'm gonna go ahead and cut the decal film off
'cause I don't want any decal film
on the inside of the canopy.
Then you go through your normal decal process.
The advantage of using decals
is you can get a nice clean, crisp line,
as clean and crisp as you can cut it.
(upbeat music)
Okay, we're ready to attach our canopy.
I'm gonna put the rear portion of the canopy in
to help position the forward portion of the canopy
and glue the forward portion on with super glue.
Go ahead and position it.
Now using a small piece of wire,
I'm gonna get a little, tiny drop of super glue.
I'm gonna put a little tack in one corner.
Tack in the middle.
And a tack in the other corner.
Now, we'll let that set up.
We don't want to use too much super glue at one time
or it's gonna cause the canopy to fog up.
Okay, I'm holding the windscreen in position.
I've got it tacked in three places.
Now I'm gonna come in in between those,
put a couple more little tacks.
And I'm gonna slowly work my way around with small tacks.
Till I've got the entire windscreen
glued down with super glue.
With that in position, we'll go ahead
and glue the rear portion of the canopy on.
We'll go through one last time and blow the cockpit out
and make sure there's no dust in the cockpit.
(blowing)
I'm gonna run a little bead of white glue
along the edge here.
Once again, we're using white glue because it dries clear.
I'll go ahead and position it.
Any excess we'll just wipe off with our finger
and come back and clean the glass up in a minute.
Now, the reason we attach
the windscreen portion with super glue is because
there shouldn't be a gap around the bottom.
This portion back here moves.
It's never gonna get a full seal.
So there will show a gap.
Coming back in on the windscreen,
I'm gonna fully fill that crack with super glue
and then I'm gonna come in and sand that out.
Blend it in with the fuselage.
This is really important at contest.
Judges do look at this kind of a thing.
I'm looking towards the light using the reflection
to see that I have completely filled the gap.
Over on this side where I haven't filled it,
you can see the difference.
Okay, my super glue is dry.
So I'm gonna come in with 600 grit wet
and sand that seam out.
(scraping)
I'm ready for some 1200 grit.
Okay, we've sanded the seam down with 600 and 1200 wet.
Now I'm taking my polishing cloth
with the dried Brasso on it
and I'm gonna come in and polish the canopy out
where I've sanded with the 1200.
And we're ready to mask the canopy and paint.
Okay, I have in front of me
some 3M fine line tape in 16th inch and eighth inch
as well as some drafting tape.
The 3M tape is available at automotive stores.
The drafting tape you can get in an art store.
Go ahead and pull off some of the 16th inch fine line tape
and mask the windscreen.
Go ahead and put it,
tack it down in one corner of the canopy.
Slowly stretch it around.
You can use a toothpick to help you position it.
Burnish the edges with your fingernail as you go
and when we're done with that,
we'll go ahead and mask the other edges of the frame.
The reason we're using the 3M, the fine line tape
is because it's easier to control where you're putting it on
and it'll give you a finer edge
than a drafting tape or a masking tape.
It's not a cloth or paper tape.
Now any areas that are gonna be painted bare metal,
such as the gun port in this case,
we want to mask prior to painting.
So I'm gonna go ahead
and mask this off with some clear tape.
Using my hobby knife...
trim away the excess.
(upbeat music)
Okay, before I start airbrushing,
I have to determine a way to hold the model.
Now, I've taken a piece of wood here and carved up the end
so that it fits nicely in the tail cone.
This way I can hold the model,
spray the whole thing without handling the model.
There's other methods of doing this.
On small-scale jets, you can use a toothbrush
and jam it in the tail pipe.
Prior to airbrushing the model,
I'm gonna wipe the whole model down with a t-shirt
to remove any finger oils and dirt and residue.
I'll go ahead and mix up some paint.
My colors, I'm using the kit instructions as a reference
for the light gray 'cause it looks right.
Probably putting...
1/3 of thinner, 2/3 of paint.
And what I like to do is swirl it around in the cup
and when the paint flows down and becomes transparent,
you got about the right consistency.
Now I'm going to test my spray
on a scrap piece of cardboard here.
(spray gun hissing)
You should always test it first.
I'm gonna lay this cardboard to the side.
And I'll begin by getting some paint flowing out of the gun
and moving to the model.
Now I'm spraying in small circular motions,
slowly filling it in.
One area that can be a problem
is where you have two angles coming together.
If I'm to spray this stabilizer,
the overspray's gonna come up and stick to the sides
of the rudder here and the vertical stabilizer.
The cure for that would be to lower your air pressure
if you've got a pressure regulator.
So now I'm using real low pressure.
And I'm gonna come in and spray along
these cracks and crevices and hard to get to places.
Walk around your model and check all your seams
now that you've got a base coat of paint.
If you see any seams that need to be refilled,
do it now.
Alright, we're ready to paint our second color
of our camouflage.
Using a combination of three sources that I found,
I'm gonna green the color up a little bit.
I've determined that this one top view right here
is as close as I'm gonna get
to the actual Iraqi camouflage scheme.
So I'll be using this photo for reference as I airbrush
and I'll set that back here.
Now I've got my second camouflage color here.
I'm gonna do a test pattern on the scrap piece of cardboard.
I'll begin out here on a wingtip.
Now, I've the first pass I made
isn't quite to where I want to go.
I'm gonna be putting more paint out here
and crisping up this edge.
Make that first pass short
and then I'm gonna come in and fill this in.
I don't want to spray this vertical stabilizer
and shaft dispenser portion here.
So I'm gonna use a Post-it notepad and stick it on there.
In fact, I'm gonna use two.
Slide one underneath the flap here
to protect the side of the fuselage there.
Now I've got that portion masked off.
(spray gun hissing)
Now I'm gonna come in and fill this in.
Now if you've thinned your paint properly,
you should be having no problems.
If you're getting spatter,
you probably have too thick of paint.
If you're getting runs, your paint is probably too thin.
If the surface is coming out like sandpaper,
you probably have your air pressure up too high.
Now I'm gonna paint the vertical stabilizer
and to keep from getting my overspray on the opposite side,
I'll put a mask up on the back.
Notice when I start spraying,
I always start spraying off of the model.
That way if you get some spatter,
it won't get on your model.
Okay, I'm gonna be using Post-it notepads
to mask on all my straight edges
and I'm doing what's called forced panel lines.
Basically just stick your Post-it notepad
along a panel line
and I'm taking my original camouflage color.
I'm gonna lighten it
and I'm gonna make it into a tint.
So I've got 1/4 original camouflage color,
about 3/4 flat, clear flat,
and a couple drops of white.
Stir that up.
(spray gun hissing)
And we want to spray right along
the edge of this Post-it notepad.
Confine it to the area that's the darker camouflage.
I'm using the darker color right now.
Now we sprayed the lighter shade along the trailing edge
or in this case the leading edge of these panel lines.
We're gonna do that to
all of the panel lines on the airplane.
We'll go front to back
and towards the outsides of the airplane.
Because I've made this paint into a tint,
we can go back and forth
till we're happy with the effect that we get.
You want to keep it really subtle.
This effect overdone will make a model look pretty bad.
As well as going side to side along the edge,
throw in a few streaks here and there from front to back.
(spray gun hissing)
Then we're gonna mask some more difficult spots
where it's just impossible to get a Post-it notepad
to wrap around the contoured surface.
So we'll just carefully wrap it around,
following the panel line.
And it's important that you use drafting tape
and not masking tape
when you're masking over the top of a painted surface.
Masking tape is a much higher tack
and sometimes will tend to pull your paint right off.
Same process now.
(spray gun hissing)
Now while you've got that mask in place,
you can come and hit some of the straight lines
with the Post-it notepads.
(spray gun hissing)
See what we've got.
Some of these little access panels up around the nose
that are just too difficult to mask
all the individual sides.
So I'm gonna cut them out of a piece of transparent tape.
Use a brand-new X-Acto knife blade
when you do something like this.
And we'll do the same thing, spraying the front edge.
I'm going to use a toothpick to help me lift the tape up.
So as not to scar the paint.
So using the transparent tape,
cutting out this one panel section,
we are able to highlight just this individual panel
that would have otherwise been almost impossible to mask.
Now along the leading edges of the wings and the stabilizers
all the sharp leading edges on the fuselage.
I'm gonna come in and add this highlight.
As well as some streaks.
Using the fine line tape,
masked around the nose, sprayed the radome the gray.
I've also masked this contoured line here.
Sprayed the anti-glare panel black.
Note also that I've highlighted the anti-glare panel
as well as the radome while I had them masked up.
Same technique used for highlighting and camouflage.
A little bit lighter shade of black.
Mask the individual lines.
Spray towards the back of the plane.
In the case of the radome,
I masked, sprayed towards the front of the plane
with a slightly lighter shade.
The next step is to bring out
the rivets and panel lines with oil paint.
In order to this, we're gonna coat the model
with Future floor wax
to protect the enamel paint underneath.
I'm using Future floor wax straight out of the bottle.
You can thin it if you like,
but believe me it's already pretty thin.
Spray on a thin coat, continue moving.
Continue coating the aircraft.
We're gonna be giving it two or three thin coats.
And on a model this large,
by the time we finish spraying the first coat,
we can come back to our starting point
and start spraying the second coat.
A smaller model, I would allow it to dry a little longer.
(upbeat music)
I've mixed black, white, and raw umber oil paints
in a beer cap here.
I've come up with a complementary color
to the camouflage scheme, in this case a dirty gray
that is not too dark.
You don't want to go too dark on this.
And what we're doing, we're gonna pick out
the panel lines and rivets with oil paint
and you begin just by scrubbing it into the cracks
and lines and rivets.
Don't worry about your slop.
Then we come back with a piece of tissue.
And remove it.
Come back with some Turpenoid and a piece of tissue.
And take a little bit out.
What I'm gonna do now is use a little bit of straight black
and hit some things like ailerons and control surfaces
and get a harder line.
I want a bigger contrast than what I had
on the panel lines and rivets
and you can see the effect of the rivets here.
On the top here, we've got a series of vents
that we're gonna pick out in a straight black.
So I'm doing the same thing I did on my flaps and ailerons
and we'll just put a little bit of black oil paint
in the cracks.
Come back in with the tissue.
Wipe away the excess.
A little bit of Turpenoid to remove the stain from the paint
and there you've got some vents.
And you'll have a little more life
than if you had left them unpainted.
If you're having any trouble keeping the oil in the cracks,
it doesn't want to stay in,
what you can do is come back with a knife blade
and re-scribe those lines.
Same thing's true with the rivets.
If you've got a few rivets that the oil won't stick in,
you can come back with your little drill bit
or you can come back in with a compass point
or a needle or pin
and now those rivets that wouldn't work before
come to life.
Now, judges at contests they'll look at a model
and if you've got a line that's partial,
if there's a little bit of oil here and oil here,
they're gonna mark that against you.
So you want to make sure and make all the lines even.
(upbeat music)
Okay, we've sprayed our model with a gloss coat.
We're ready to put our decals on now.
Now, I've chosen an Iraqi paint scheme.
So I've went out and purchased some aftermarket decals.
Now I'm gonna prep the surface with micro-set
and this cleans the surface of the model.
And position it according to the instructions provided.
Check it with our reference.
Put a little bit of Micro-Sol on top of that
to soften the decal.
It'll make it conform to the surface better.
Careful positioning is very important.
The decals should be aligned properly.
Judges will look for that.
Okay, now I'm going to apply a small decal
and I'll exclusively use a paintbrush to handle this.
Now going back to the flag,
I've noticed that it did not suck down into the rivets there
so I'm gonna put a little more Micro-Sol over those rivets.
I'm gonna take a straight pin.
You can use a needle or a compass point.
Carefully poke holes in the decal
to let some of the air out.
Now, decals that are applied to both the left
and right-hand sides of the aircraft
should line up properly.
If you've got a model where they're not supposed to line up,
you should bring photographic evidence of this
to the contest with you.
Judges do check to see that decals line up properly.
(upbeat music)
Okay, now I'm gonna come in and paint the front gear well
to demonstrate some washes.
And I'm taking a brush dampened with paint thinner,
not excessively wet,
and lightly wetting the surface inside there.
I'm gonna take another brush,
get some Turpenoid, mix with my oils
to create a wash and I've got a really dirty wash in there.
You can choose your color.
You may want to do a black wash or a dirty wash.
And we're gonna come in and just touch it to some corners
and let it spread out.
Okay, now the wheel wells on this plane
remain a light gray.
I'm gonna come in with the original gray color
lightened with some white and do some dry brushing.
Okay, we've got our wash and our dry brushing.
Now we can come in and pick some details out
using some silver paint and I'm gonna come in
and pick out some of these hose fittings.
Just do a little detail painting.
Reference material really comes in handy
in a case like this if you've got it,
otherwise it's up to the imagination.
Okay, now our decals have dried.
I'm gonna come in with some Future floor wax
after I dust this area
and spray over the top of the decal
where I'm gonna be putting some oil paint in those rivets.
(spray gun hissing)
Just a little bit.
I'm gonna go ahead and put the oil paint
right in and around these rivets.
And do the same thing we did before with our oil paint.
I'll come in and wipe off the excess.
Now for my final coat, I'm gonna mix some clear flat.
And a little bit of clear gloss.
I don't want a totally flat finish.
Go ahead and spray the model up.
Okay, I'm gonna spray the gun panel
as well as the engine parts, tail cone parts.
I've got a metalizing type paint here.
(spray gun hissing)
This metalizer paint now doesn't take very long to dry.
Once it's dry, give it a few minutes to dry,
we can come in with a t-shirt and I'm gonna buff it out.
And it'll get very shiny.
It doesn't take very much.
I'm just gonna lightly buff this
'cause I don't want it too shiny.
Now I'm gonna do the same thing with this tail cone piece.
I'm gonna buff it out very lightly.
Okay, we're ready to do some weathering.
I'm gonna use some oil paint.
I've already got the gray color mix
that we put in our panel lines.
I'm getting a little bit more raw umber.
Brown.
What I'm gonna do is come along
and take some of that gray and a little of that brown...
And here and there on the model,
I'll place just a small dab behind a rivet or something
and streak it back with my finger.
So we're gonna scatter this weathering around.
I'm gonna put small dabs of paint here and there.
Streak it back with my finger.
We can use the same oil effect,
thinned out with Turpenoid
to get a little bit different effect,
more of a wet streaked look.
We want to keep all our weathering settle though.
I'm just gonna bounce around here and there,
put small streaks.
Okay, now to simulate exhaust and gun burns,
I'm coming in with some black pastel
that I've ground off with an X-Acto.
And I'm going to stipple it onto the surface here.
Blow the excess off.
Come back to these vents and add a little bit of streaks.
I'm gonna keep this subtle
as with all your other weathering.
Now, with pastels I don't recommend using a clear coat.
This has a tendency to cause them to go transparent.
Once you've got them on there,
basically you can't handle them.
So be careful when handling your model.
Underwing stores, missiles, fuel tanks
should be treated the same as a separate aircraft model.
All the seams should be filled.
The lines should be re-scribed.
If the fins are too thick,
they should be thinned down or replaced.
Now when painting them,
I've gone ahead sprayed them with white,
given them a coat of Future floor wax
and treated the panel lines with oil paint.
And I've also come in, added decal stripes,
just some decal that I cut out of a sheet.
Now, the weapons pylons I've given the same treatment
as the rest of the model.
I've given them a wash, some dry brushing,
a little bit of forced panel lines when I airbrushed them,
also come and taken some 48 scale decals from a MiG kit
and added some small stencil.
Well that's it.
If you like, you can enter your jet
in local or national hobby contests.
Your local hobby shop will fill you in
on the contest information.
Remember though, we do this mostly for fun.
Thanks for watching Video Workbench.
I'm Chris Wilson and we'll see you next time.
(upbeat music)
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