Kitty Hawk SEPECAT Jaguar GR-1A, 6 Sqn RAF

I also replaced the kit part under the tail with some plastic rod to make it more like the actual aircraft. The kit supplies the arrester hook in PE but the long part looked too one dimensional so I replaced this with some brass rod.

At this stage I finished the bombs and AIM-9L’s. These were painted with Mr Color Lacquers. The Remove Before Flight (RBF) tags on the BL 755’s and the AIM-9L nose cone were from eduard. I scratch-built the long tag around the warhead from lead foil.

Paint was Mr Color Lacquers, #330 (BS381C/641 Dark Green and #331 (BS381C/638 Dark Sea Grey). These were lightened a bit with some white to compensate for the scale. I like Mr Color lacquers as they dry nearly instantly which means you can handle the model straight away. I loaded one colour into my Sparmax DH-103 and the other into my Iwata Eclipse Airbrush. The grey was applied first, then after about 5 mins, I freehanded the green alternating between the colours until I got the pattern I desired.

The next day I wasn’t happy with the grey as it appeared too dark. So went over the grey with a lighter shade. Once I was happy I applied some darker patches over both colours, masked out the anti-glare panel, fin tip and gun muzzle area. They were painted Tamiya NATO Black and Red Brown respectively.
A dark grey wash of oil paint thinned with artist’s solvent was applied. I’ve recently started using artists solvent to thin oils (as artists do) as it is not as strong as turps or white sprits. Another advantage of using Mr Color is that no gloss acrylic sealing coat prior to a wash is required. This is because they are semi-gloss and being lacquers are not affected by spirit based washes.

At this stage I decided I wanted a ladder on the jet. So looking at images online I scratch built one from evergreen plastic and some brass mesh. It’s not entirely accurate as it should be on more of an angle, but it will be good enough. I now applied a gloss coat prior to decaling using model master gloss. Three days later some bits are still tacky so that will be last time I use that. To resolve this I applied a coat of Tamiya X-22 Clear thinned with Mr Colour thinners.

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