AREA 88: "A Dill Hill To Die On" (F-111)

The box... slightly crushed as always when ordering from Aliexpress... 

So yeah... the sprues... Not a ton of details on these sprues, but we can fix that.  

Quick dry...fit...ish proves it will look more or less like a 'Vark when it's done. This one's gonna need some love. 

The canopy on the F-111 is pretty distinctive, so and this is not it - even after I added a bit of framing to the canopy... we'll need to explore Plan B 

First thing to do is start scribing some panel lines... like... ALL of them. Painted the interior of the canopy with Tamiya Smoke (X-19) just to see if it's going to work. 

Conveniently, Trumpeter decided to off only one wing for both sides instead of a mirror image. So I had to make a copy of the scribe lines I'd already done, make a mirror image, and then glue some paper onto the wing and scribe out the details. It work 

Let’s get to work on the air intakes... another distinctive 'Vark feature... which was also largely incorrect on this kit. 

A bit of cut tubing covers most of the gaps. 

A bit more plastic sheet and some missile tips sanded to about a quarter round (but not quite) seems to have done the trick. 

Yeah, I think I can live with that. Still a bit more scribing to do on the nose though. 

Ok... let’s add some lights... 

Yeah... I think this’ll work. 

Closed off the air intakes. I also managed to break off the wing posts, so now they’re glued in place. Oh, well. 

Ok... I took the business end of a file to the canopy. Does that look better? 

I couldn’t bear to blow anyone up, so these two safety dummies will be practically invisible inside the cockpit. 

Everyone nestled safely in place, so time for some putty... and sanding! 

First coat of paint on. 

Skipped a couple of rounds of masking and painting... but now it’s got camouflage. 

The lights still work... whew! 

Final bit of paint... now to work on the base. 

Base done, panel line wash, check. Explosion fireball, attached. 

Looks like we’re done here.