Hi guys, finally I can called it done: the Harrier GR Mk.3.
The W.I.P. is here
Take off in a "Jump Jet" with the Harrier Gr. Mk.3! This Hasegawa's 1/72 scale kit is typical of Hasegawa design and manufacturing. The kit went together with minimal fuss, no putty and little sanding. It's an OOB build with RAF Norwegian camo during 1988 NATO Winter exercise, which featuring White and Dark Sea Gray (I use Mr.Color 331). It's a highly detailed kit with almost 65 injection-molded grey plastic parts, a detailed cockpit with instrument panel and pilot and realistic landing gear. Kit number: HSGB6.
The fuselage and wings are almost perfectly fitted, I have no problem with it during the process. The cockpit was hand-painted especially the ejection seat and instrument panels. Please make sure you enjoy painting something really small and detail which will be hidden after you assemble the aircraft.
Nothing much to tell about the cockpit painting, they provided the instrument panel decals so it's a easy job. But the aircraft is a little bit lightweight so I glue a 100grams ballast in the middle of fuselage to ensure some solid handling.
As usual I will start from smaller parts such as weapons and the accessories, for this Harrier I paint the vertical flight puffer jets (exhaust) & Nimonic fuselage heat shield first, following with the weapons: Aden 30mm Gun pod, MATRA LR-155 Rocket Launcher, 1,000 lb bomb & BL 755 Cluster bomb. Hasegawa is really generous on this.
The paint I use for the exhaust and heat shield is Sunin7's Gun Metal, yea maybe some of you never heard of it. It's a China brand, almost same formula like Gaia paint even the bottle also looks alike. They know how to produced quality paint, no complain from me after using their products for many times.
After that I primed everything with Mr.Finishing surfacer 1500, it's an excellent primer surfacer for 1/72 scale kit. After everything cure and dry I spray White onto the whole aircraft, I use Modo's Pure White, it's a Taiwanese brand and the paint spreads pretty good. For camouflage masking, I would like to share my method here, it's a very useful and effective method: by using blu-tack.
Firstly I use pencil to draw some thin lines to indicate where the blu-tack should be and then cover those lines with blu-tack, it's not easy if you doesn't plan nicely! Trust me, It's a process which you'll burn your brain. And then I use masking tape to mask the area where the white color should remain; of course, masking tape can be replace by paper.
Please make sure everything is in place before you proceed with painting, I finally I spent a 2 hours session painting Mr.Color 331, fighting with the blu-tack that sticks to everything it touches, It wasn't easy. The best moment would be the moment you peel off all the masking tape and blu-tack.
Proceed with decals application the second day, two waterslide decal marking options for this kit: choose between RAFG No.4 SPN and RAFG No.3 SPN, I go for RAFG No.4 since their squadron emblem looks cooler than the 3rd RAFG, and the color is suitable for White-Gray camouflage too. I applied some self-printed customized decals onto this Harrier too, for example that Chinese word which mean "Trust" and some others near the undercarriage.
For paint chipping side, I hand-paint it instead of using maskol. It depends, for such small scale like 1/72 I prefer hand-painting as I can control where to chips and can be "undo" afterward by using white paint. I use Mr.Color 339 EngineGray for the chipping, it's slightly darker than Mr.Color 331 but still acceptable. I spray 3 layers of Clear coat before step into weathering session, just to ensure the weathering medium flows nicely and smoothly on the surface.
I use Tamiya Accent color, Tamiya Enamel paint and Oil paint for panel lining/weathering/washing. Tamiya Accent color is a very good medium for panel lining as it spreads nicely along the panel lines. I use Enamel paints & Oil paints for oil stain, oil leaking and some streaking effect. Tamiya X20 & White Spirits can be replace by Zippo lighter fluid, they're almost the same function here but Zippo vaporize a little bit too fast.
Clear Black is a good option for exhaust smoke stain but mixtures of Clear and Black are better option: my ratio is 5% Black - 95% clear. Sometimes clear black is too light so maybe we have to spray 4-5 layers to ensure good outcome but with this Black & Clear method, 2 layers are more than enough.
Red & white stripes tag / Remove before flight tags: I make the design with my computer and print them out, cut them and just attach them onto the aircraft, it's another easy and effective detail-adding method which I always use. I touch up with some pencil and pen to make it looks realistic.
On with the Diorama, a simple tarmac airfield will be cool for this Harrier. I prefer simpel diorama because sometimes complex diorama distract audience from your main subject. I use scriber to scribe the lines on the 5mm pla-plate. I used to cut the pla-plates into pieces before but this method is really simple and efficient. Gaia Neutral Gray as main color, Mr.Color 339 Engine Gray, Gaia Clear Black and some White for some color variation. I use the same weathering medium for the airfield just like the Harrier, coated with matt and touch up some stain effect with soft-pastel.
To make the airfield more alive and busy, I get some goodie from Hasegawa 1/72 US Pilot/Ground crew set: I use the 1 pilot, 3 maintenance crews and the maintenance platform. I use Mr.Hobby paints for their uniform and accessories, AV Vallejo 017 for the skin. And, for their eyes, I use tooth picker to paint it, I learn it somewhere and it's a really cool method.
That's all, I really enjoy building this kit, I spent around 10 days to finish it, average 3 hours per day.
The W.I.P. is here
Take off in a "Jump Jet" with the Harrier Gr. Mk.3! This Hasegawa's 1/72 scale kit is typical of Hasegawa design and manufacturing. The kit went together with minimal fuss, no putty and little sanding. It's an OOB build with RAF Norwegian camo during 1988 NATO Winter exercise, which featuring White and Dark Sea Gray (I use Mr.Color 331). It's a highly detailed kit with almost 65 injection-molded grey plastic parts, a detailed cockpit with instrument panel and pilot and realistic landing gear. Kit number: HSGB6.
The fuselage and wings are almost perfectly fitted, I have no problem with it during the process. The cockpit was hand-painted especially the ejection seat and instrument panels. Please make sure you enjoy painting something really small and detail which will be hidden after you assemble the aircraft.
Nothing much to tell about the cockpit painting, they provided the instrument panel decals so it's a easy job. But the aircraft is a little bit lightweight so I glue a 100grams ballast in the middle of fuselage to ensure some solid handling.
As usual I will start from smaller parts such as weapons and the accessories, for this Harrier I paint the vertical flight puffer jets (exhaust) & Nimonic fuselage heat shield first, following with the weapons: Aden 30mm Gun pod, MATRA LR-155 Rocket Launcher, 1,000 lb bomb & BL 755 Cluster bomb. Hasegawa is really generous on this.
The paint I use for the exhaust and heat shield is Sunin7's Gun Metal, yea maybe some of you never heard of it. It's a China brand, almost same formula like Gaia paint even the bottle also looks alike. They know how to produced quality paint, no complain from me after using their products for many times.
After that I primed everything with Mr.Finishing surfacer 1500, it's an excellent primer surfacer for 1/72 scale kit. After everything cure and dry I spray White onto the whole aircraft, I use Modo's Pure White, it's a Taiwanese brand and the paint spreads pretty good. For camouflage masking, I would like to share my method here, it's a very useful and effective method: by using blu-tack.
Firstly I use pencil to draw some thin lines to indicate where the blu-tack should be and then cover those lines with blu-tack, it's not easy if you doesn't plan nicely! Trust me, It's a process which you'll burn your brain. And then I use masking tape to mask the area where the white color should remain; of course, masking tape can be replace by paper.
Please make sure everything is in place before you proceed with painting, I finally I spent a 2 hours session painting Mr.Color 331, fighting with the blu-tack that sticks to everything it touches, It wasn't easy. The best moment would be the moment you peel off all the masking tape and blu-tack.
Proceed with decals application the second day, two waterslide decal marking options for this kit: choose between RAFG No.4 SPN and RAFG No.3 SPN, I go for RAFG No.4 since their squadron emblem looks cooler than the 3rd RAFG, and the color is suitable for White-Gray camouflage too. I applied some self-printed customized decals onto this Harrier too, for example that Chinese word which mean "Trust" and some others near the undercarriage.
For paint chipping side, I hand-paint it instead of using maskol. It depends, for such small scale like 1/72 I prefer hand-painting as I can control where to chips and can be "undo" afterward by using white paint. I use Mr.Color 339 EngineGray for the chipping, it's slightly darker than Mr.Color 331 but still acceptable. I spray 3 layers of Clear coat before step into weathering session, just to ensure the weathering medium flows nicely and smoothly on the surface.
I use Tamiya Accent color, Tamiya Enamel paint and Oil paint for panel lining/weathering/washing. Tamiya Accent color is a very good medium for panel lining as it spreads nicely along the panel lines. I use Enamel paints & Oil paints for oil stain, oil leaking and some streaking effect. Tamiya X20 & White Spirits can be replace by Zippo lighter fluid, they're almost the same function here but Zippo vaporize a little bit too fast.
Clear Black is a good option for exhaust smoke stain but mixtures of Clear and Black are better option: my ratio is 5% Black - 95% clear. Sometimes clear black is too light so maybe we have to spray 4-5 layers to ensure good outcome but with this Black & Clear method, 2 layers are more than enough.
Red & white stripes tag / Remove before flight tags: I make the design with my computer and print them out, cut them and just attach them onto the aircraft, it's another easy and effective detail-adding method which I always use. I touch up with some pencil and pen to make it looks realistic.
On with the Diorama, a simple tarmac airfield will be cool for this Harrier. I prefer simpel diorama because sometimes complex diorama distract audience from your main subject. I use scriber to scribe the lines on the 5mm pla-plate. I used to cut the pla-plates into pieces before but this method is really simple and efficient. Gaia Neutral Gray as main color, Mr.Color 339 Engine Gray, Gaia Clear Black and some White for some color variation. I use the same weathering medium for the airfield just like the Harrier, coated with matt and touch up some stain effect with soft-pastel.
To make the airfield more alive and busy, I get some goodie from Hasegawa 1/72 US Pilot/Ground crew set: I use the 1 pilot, 3 maintenance crews and the maintenance platform. I use Mr.Hobby paints for their uniform and accessories, AV Vallejo 017 for the skin. And, for their eyes, I use tooth picker to paint it, I learn it somewhere and it's a really cool method.
That's all, I really enjoy building this kit, I spent around 10 days to finish it, average 3 hours per day.
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