Revell F/A 18-E Super Hornet

Whine all you want about the merits of decals on instrument panels, but they create a very aesthetically pleasing (and accurate!) replica. 

I discovered my new favorite oil wash quite by accident. I was going to mix a bit of black acrylic in tap water, and I grabbed the first big brush I could find. It just so happened to be holding some yellow dye leftover from the F-16 canopy, and lo and be 

It would have taken me somewhere around 5-8 hours to go in and do all the piping myself. The kit's pipes are actually raised ridges, but you wouldn't have known that had I not told you. 

 

I carved away the molded launch bar linkages and replaced them with some music wire, as well as thinning out the launch bar itself. 

While the kit's simplified landing gear gives novices a huge boost in overall aesthetic quality in their finished product, they have some major accuracy issues. 

I carved away excess plastic to recreate the strut linkages. 

I applaud Revell for the perfect fitting intake parts. They made it very easy to get a "seamless" trunk. 

 

Steel turbines, ready for a charcoal wash. 

I scratchbuilt the little box in front since that portion of the wheel well will be fairly visible from the outside. 

1/2 oiled, 1/2 clean 

The kit's instrument hood was for reasons I don't fully understand, very innacurate, so I chose to build a HUD projector out of styrene sheet. 

I drilled out this vent to make the belly more interesting. 

One issue with the Revell kit is that the cockpit sidewalls aren't as wide as they should be, so I added a few styrene strips to remedy that. 

The ejection seat was updated with new cushions, belts, and wiring. 

The finished seat. 

I build a sidewall control panel by running some wires through a rectangular piece of scrap, and clipping them short enough that they look like buttons. 

The installed sidewall panel. It's nice looking, though, I don't see why it couldn't have been included in the mold. 

The completed cockpit tub. All in all, I think it looks 90% as good as a resin kit would have, especially considering some of the scratchbuilt handles I put in. 

Spares for the new decklid. 

The rear decklid looks nice, but lacks in realism. 

Closeup of the scratchbuilt-ish canopy actuator. While it's still undersize, the bracing behind the seat will look good once the canopy is installed. 

The fit on the parts was practically 100%. Revell gets an A for ease of assembly. 

Really starting to look like a Hornet! 

Weathering with pigment pen and tempura.  

The panel lines and rivets are being filled in with a blend of about 50% acrylic black, 25% golden airbrush medium, and 25% water. You can see the panels before they are cleaned up in the top right of the picture. 

The completed build. Need to do a proper photoshoot sometime.