Monogram F-15C Eagle build… Skill Level 2
Even though this isn’t part of our typical hobbies, it has become a bad weather/broken plane/broken RC car time replacement hobby. One evening I was going through Ebay.com and saw this Monogram plane posted for sale. Previously opened, and it asserted that no missing parts to the kit. I purchased it, some paints, some glue, sand paper and a few other things. Price of the kit was around 19 dollars, which I thought was phenomenal for a 1:48 scale.
Although Monogram is not my favorite brand for these types of planes we decided to purchase it as it is typical for the older kits (this one in particular was from 2012) to have better details and build ratios as stacking tolerances arent an issue on the original molds; just my own observations from years of being around the hobby.
First things first
First we catalog the pieces and double check for all of them to be there. While checking these pieces we are also trying to asses what will get painted what color. Example, tires will be black, plane body grey, rims white…. and so on.
Next step….
We begin gluing, cleaning, and sanding pieces that we will glue together to form more complex shapes that will need to be painted as a unit. One of the things that made this possible was the kit being a Skill Level 2. Meaning, not many pieces and easy construction at the expense of finer, smaller details in the assembled pieces. For us this was not a problem as the goal is to build them out, paint them, and hang them up from the boys room ceiling. We are working on creating a dog fight scene with model planes!
We will be featuring American Air Power, but have not figured out yet who the opposition will be. We always welcome ideas!
Slow progress for sure, but I guess this is the love for the art….
We are about 2 weeks into this build currently due to time constraints and real life, so progress has been slow at best. I definitely need to figure out a better technique for the cockpit details as it has been tedious at best to get it painted properly.
Currently, we are waiting for all the paint, glue, to settle and harden up. Once this happens we will go into sanding it. The idea will be to create some smoothness in the panel transitions that where glued and also to provide rougher than normal surface in some areas to highlight dirt and wear for a bit of realism. Before sanding we will make sure to use a very fine marker to note some dark areas that need to be added prior to the wear and tear detailing.
Just before the sanding… detailing dark smears of dirt/oil/wear. After this step we sand it down and use the main grey color to regulate the dirt and wear on the plane. We can always paint, sand and repair if we mess it up.
I have taken the time to add some dirt marks, wear marks, and details to the missiles. I also added some chrome buckles to the pilot as well as colored black the intake dips in fuselage features.
So we are finally on the final stretch home. All that is needed to do is paint the details on the body, add missiles, and water-stickers.
I will be updating this page as projects progression unfolds.