1/48 Tamiya F4U-1A Corsair

Gallery Article by Steve Norton on Dec 7 2003

 

This is my first posting on ARC.  I built this kit straight out of the box.  The model was airbrushed first with a coat of Testors Model Master aluminum and then airbrushed with white acrylic on the bottom and intermediate blue and flat sea blue on top.  The blue shades were Testors Model Master enamels as I was unable to find correct blue acrylics in my area.  I also added a little white to the flat sea blue and lightly sprayed it on as a final coat to give it an uneven appearance.  

 

Click on images below to see larger images

Before painting the top coats I applied salt with a wet paint brush and after the top coats were applied and had time to dry I chipped off the salt.  This revealed the aluminum and gave the paint a chipped look.  This was my first time using this technique and I think that it came out pretty well although I may have done too much.  Well, I like it anyway.  For the rest of the weathering I used burnt umber water colors for the panel lines and various shades of gray artists pastels for the exhaust and gun stains. Finally I airbrushed on Future and then a final coat of dullcoat to dull the appearance.

The only problem that I encountered was the fit of the wings.  Other than that is was a nice kit to build.

Steve Norton

      

Photos and text © by Steve Norton