1/48 Academy F-16

by David Qu

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Hello All, this is the first model that I built with using an airbrush.  For obvious financial and time constraints during school time, I had not had any serious scale modeling for almost 7 years!  I eventually picked up this hobby again after I started working.  After getting my first airbrush, I just couldn't not wait, and now I'm really excited about this first serious model I did in a long long time.  So, after years of not modeling at all, I start all over again and I consider myself a real rookie here.  Back to the model; I picked up this 1/48 Academy F-16 at the local hobby lobby store and built it just OOB.  I used Testors enamel paints, and since I am new to airbrushing, it took some getting-use-to.  A few times I had my airbrush clogged since  I wasn't experienced enough to deal with the paint/thinner ratio; and the water forming in the nozzle of the airbrush was also new to me. For the panel-lines, I was trying to use the watercolor ideas, however I realized that it was hard for me to control the solution's density; and for some reason, it was HARDER for me to get the unwanted wash off the panels and sometimes it left a stain that took forever to erase!! (I did not paint any clear gloss coat by the way).  So I kinda' cleaned it up and tried using pastels, that's what you see on the back of the fuselage and the wings where they appear to have some shads and wash effects.  The model has fairly good recessed panel line, I guess that's why this pastel thing kinda' worked out.  There are lots of MESS-UPS in this model: I hand painted the after burner part as you can see it has a different tone of color (did I use the wrong paint?)  Also, I was using Testors putty to fill out those two big cracks at the connection point between the wings and the fuselage, and it turned out to be a disaster, and p.i.a to clean it all up.  I was really upset and I didn't bother with filling them at all (I didn't have any other putty, filler or CA anyway).  The guys at the forum gave me this hint of NOT using Testors putty, I wish I had learned that before I applied them.  Lastly, I messed up the decal on the rear stabilizer.  The decal was actually a lot bigger, however I thought it would fit so I attempted to directly apply it and ended up getting it off and re-size it; and guess what; I trimed the margin too much, and that's what you see here.

Click on images below to see larger images

  

  

I didn't find any real photos on internet; but still I just used the two MK-84 (or mk-82?) as the loadout on one side of the wing.

Anyway, I'm happy with this overall work considering not building for almost 7 years.  I'm definitely hoping to learn a lot from this great website.

David

Photos and text © by David Qu