I finally finished a model....a plane no less. This is my third attempt at a plane, so I'm still trying to figure things out here. The kit is Tamiya's A-1H Skyraider, and it is excellent. I built it OOTB, painted it with Tamiya acrylics, did an oil wash, and no drybrushing.

Judging by the pics below, what areas should I focus on improving (I'm normal an armor guy and am sort of flailing blindly with the planes, but I'm having a great time doing it!).

Any tips or suggestions are welcomed!!!






On this last pic, what tape is best for getting really sharp edges? I used Tamiya's tape, and really burnished it down there, but as you can see there is still some underspray.

Hey jeff, beautiful birdy. One of my favs, and awesome kit. I see 2 things for this one though.


1. The exhaust stain is missing. It was almost part of the paint job they got so bad. Most units would paint a gint blachk patch down the side to try and perserve the bird. The stain runs from right behind the cowl to just below the cockpit flowing over the wing.


2. The nose of the bird. it may be the flash has bleached the grey, but it looks like the you missed the very dificult to mask curve of white that split the cowl colors so that grey cas centered nicly between the black and white.


I also use Tamiya tape but i try not to glue the cowls on till after painting. I'll fit it to rest of the aircraft for masking but take it off so i don't get the over spray.


Again great job. Makes me want to grab my prop action kit from the shelf. STUG

Jeff, nice build. Steve already hit on what I saw as well. The Tamiya tape is the best I have found for masking this type stuff. Anything stronger and you might risk pulling up the underlying paint....trust me here, been there done that. Steve's recommendation about removing the cowl for painting is what I would and do do as well for tricky curves. Thanks for sharing your work. "Q"

Thanks for the comments guys!!! The bottom of the cowl wasn't painted white, and I do need to add the exhaust stains. Again, thanks for the comments!

Jeff,
Nice build. The only thing I noticed is that on the top view the Bee decals do not match. One seems further foward than the other. I would need to look at photos of the real aircraft to see if they should match or not.
Eric

It looks great!
A good tip for preventing underspray is to shoot a quick thin coat of clear gloss first. This seals the edge of the tape, If there is any underspray, it's clear. Your next color won't be able to creep under the tape.

It could be due to the flash, but I would add some weathering inside the speed brakes on the fuselage. It looks too clean in the photo.
The exhaust stains, as mentioned already, just check some photos for color and shape/size. It looks like you did great on the panel line wash, not too dark.

Overall, it's very nice!