Done (-ish): Hobby Boss 1/48 F/A-18C Hornet

That one fought me all the way. Fitting the Aires cockpit was quite a struggle, as it’s designed for the Hasegawa kit. The windscreen wouldn’t fit, as it is too wide for the fuselage. In the end I managed to break it in half. Getting replacement parts from HB is all but impossible (if you know the secret handshake, please drop me a line!). A Revell replacement I ordered (for their FA-18) is so much smaller that it almost looks like a different scale. Oh well, maybe future me will be able to get that replacement part from HB…

For some reason I really like the modern US Navy Tactical Paint Scheme. Yes, it’s a bit drab, certainly not as colourful as the old Gull Gray over White scheme. But it gives lots of room for weathering and the creation of certain focal points. So I was really looking forward to finally break open the Gunze colors for that scheme, H307 and H308 representing FS36320 and FS36375, respectively. For that typical heavy weathering and staining after a long carrier deployment, I resorted to spraying lighter and darker mixes of the base colors along panel lines and around maintenance hatches and fasteners, followed by enamel washes and a bit of pastels. Happy with how that turned out. Then I started on the decals…

The CAM Decals sheet I got for that project looks absolutely beautiful and is quite nice to work with. But there was one small problem: the decal’s colors match the surrounding area to a degree that lets them almost disappear. I know all the TPS markings are tone-in-tone, but that was a bit too much… Long story short, only after I finished the kit I found out that Gunze’s Ghost Greys are not as good as most of their other colors, being too dark and with a slight hint of purple. Normally, such a small deviation from the original colors wouldn’t be a problem – but in a case where all the various colors are so similar to start with, you might end up with almost invisible markings.

Right now I’m about to compare a couple of different manufacturers’ Ghost Greys – Gunze, Italeri and Life Color. So, if you are into color-bean counting or you want to prevent the hazzle I had, stay tuned!