Painting
This is the part that will really define this build as Maverick’s F-18 is what it is all about. The scheme is relatively straightforward. The base scheme is the standard F-18E/F colour call out of FS36320 Dark Ghost Grey over FS36375 Light Ghost Grey. Revell use paint call outs for their own brand which isn’t always readily available or the choice of a lot of modellers so using the FS numbers will allow you to use your preferred paints. I used Gunze paints as I had some left over from a previous build and due to the slightly roughish surface of the plastic it would give a smoother finish than my normal Mr Paints which would be good for the decals. The tails were then masked off and sprayed black and it was time for the spine. This did prove to be a little troublesome and I would recommend photocopying and cutting out the blue stripes. These can then be laid on the spine to give a good template as to how far the black should extend. I say all this in hindsight as I masked the black based upon the instructions and the blue stripes ended up short. This resulted in me having to mask up the tail part of the blue stripes and doing my best to mix up a paint mixture that matched the decal blue. It wasn’t perfect but it would have to do.
The decals in general are quite good but there are a couple of anomalies. The ‘stars and bars‘ insignia are not standard and will have to be replaced from the spares box as I did if you want accuracy. The TOP GUN logo on the tail is also incorrect as it shows an F-18 in the gun sights whereas the actual logo has a MiG-21 in the sights. Again, I had to raid the spares box for the correct markings. These two issues aren’t show stoppers as the kit markings are in the general ball park but it is annoying and I presume the reason is probably copyright issues?
The tail stripes surprised me with how well they went down and the small inserts to cover the raised areas worked really well. Also note that the real aircraft had no bureau numbers so they aren’t missing from the kit.
Toby Page says
Great build and write up Dave. I now know I need the ECS pipes as well, I have got replacement Eduard zoom for the cockpit and resin exhaust’s for when I build mine.