Hi Nixer,

Those are the chaff dispensors

And a virtual beer for the knowledgeable one from France.

I would have never guessed that. They look more like ewar antennae or daiquiri machines.

Hi all,
A small update. I've got fed up of filling and sanding the spine flare dispensor. Unless there is anything glaringly poor I'm going to have to live with it. You'll also note the spine exhaust just before the dispensor, made from a scrap intake / exhaust / radiator flap / or something!

Here it is pre-shaded and with the top-side green drying. I think I'm going to have to have four sessions spraying this as I have nowhere for it to rest whilst drying. Green will be freehanded on, before masking for the grey. (Yes, there is a dog hair on it, within seconds of putting it down. Thanks Ted!)

Your pre-shading pics in all your builds must be really helpful to less experienced builders.

I bet that took you a long time to perfect.

That's nice of you to say so, but it's a really simple technique. Prime, spray the panel lines black, precision / neatness does not matter and squirt a bit extra where a shadow might fall. Change to white and fill in some smaller panels, with random squiggles in the larger ones. Slowly build up the the top coat with xtracolour. (It's my favourite, but you can use any brand.) I like xtracolour because it's the easiest brand to do this with. It has the perfect level of translucency so you just spray slowly, giving a bit more paint over the black, and a little less over the white. It's only drawback is the drying time (it also stinks!) compared to acrylics. Done!

Looking good so far - any update?

Funny you should ask Billy

I've had a break from the Mirage when I found the grey paint when I found the grey Xtracolour had dried in the pot. (Can't complain, it was at least 25 years old!) Built the Great Wall Hobby 1/144 Victor K.2 in the meantime - great fun kit.

The main colours are now complete, and I've started painting some detail to the sensors and chaff dispensors at the wing root. Ready for decalling this weekend. One of my favourite parts of a build.






Nice and shiny for the decals. (Could stand a polish in a few places.) I'm not bothering detailing the wheel wells. My intention is to display it on a simple base with some ground equipment, so it will be stuck down, and the wells will never be seen. I'll just give it them a dark wash and dry brush some highlights.

Another one of my wacky masking jobs in order to paint to two antennae on the fin. Any other colour than white and I'd have brush painted.



Then we're on to decals, when all models start to come to life. These have proved to be very troublesome. They are lovely and thin, but that means they are very difficult to move around on the model. Consequently I have couple out of position as I had to settle for where they were as they started to break up. The most annoying aspect is the "No Step" warning chevrons, which the Authentic Decals sheet does not supply anywhere near enough of (and those they do supply don't fit the model properly...). I could have used the Eduard decals, but I made a mess of one, and so there is a mix of the two different sizes.



Now I'm getting going with the Flory Models washes. I noramlly use only one colour, but I'm trying somethig different and using a basic colour, then adding some areas of contrasting colour to get some different panel effects, and some different colour streaks.





Thanks for looking.

Got some good work done on this over the last few days.

Here are the large drop tanks, weathered and flat coated.




And the Damocles targetting pod, also finished, wonky decal and all!




Here's the top side weathered and flat coated.




And the underside.

NOICE!

--T