Trumpeter 1:32 AV-8B Night Attack Harrier II Build Log

Seat assembled and painted, decals added and cockpit prepped for assembly 

Some weathering added and photo etched seat belts being added. 

Seatbelts done and painted... More weathering. 

The Pegasus engine assembled and painted... not that you'll see it in the finished model! 

Wheels, gear and wheel well painted 

Coat of wash added, along with a little sepia wash to give the greasey effect. 

Cockpit assembled and ready to go. 

Forward fuzz section glued up. 

Test fitting the engine into the fuzz half. 

Test fitting the engine into the fuzz half. 

Fuzz halves joined together... Reasonably good fit. 

Wings and tail feathers assembled. Forward fuzz section dry fitted. 

Nose section added, wasn't a good fit so will need lots of sanding/shaping to smooth the join. Intake area prepainted and maksed. 

Air intakes added. 

There was no option to have the flaps deployed 'out of the box' but nothing a sharp knife can't solve! 

There was no option to have the flaps deployed 'out of the box' but nothing a sharp knife can't solve! 

Pylons and ordinances assembled. 

And undercoated. 

Lots of filling, filing and sanding and she's ready for paint. 

Undercoat done. 

A bit of preshading! 

First basecoat on the belly done. 

Masked up with blutac and tape ready for second colour basecoat. First time using Vallejo paints too. Have always stuck with Tamiya acylics but quite enjoyed using the Model Air paints, sprays well and no thinning required. 

Second colour basecoat done. 

And from the underside! 

Masked up ready for final third colour. 

All basecoat painting done... now onto some detailing. 

Some preliminary weathering effects with the airbrush added. 

Pylons painted and assembled. 

Peripherals painted. 

Few layers of various metallics on the exhuast nozzles and deflectors done. Quite happy with how they turned out - very similar to the research photos I have on the full size aircraft. 

Everything was then clear coated using Mircoscale gloss and decals added. 

From the top... Decals added and some more weathering details done. 

Ordinances decal'ed up. I reckon there were more decals on these than the actual aircraft! 

Ordinances assembled and ready for installation. 

More fine-tuning on the weathering. 

And more weathering... 

And more weathering... 

And more weathering... 

Decals oversprayed lightly to blend them in better. 

Decals oversprayed lightly to blend them in better. 

Pointy bits all assembled. 

I wasn't happy with how the main canopy turned out - I had managed to crack it whilst cleaning up the seam line and tried to glue it... made a right ol' mess of it and ended up dipping it in floor polish hoping it would clean up the marks left from polish 

So it had a bath in some cloudy ammonia to remove the floor polish, then spent some time with the polishing bit on the dremel. A marked improvement, but had to repaint the frame again. 

Much better! 

Canopy installed and pretty much done. Last thing to do is vinyl cut out a det chord for the canopy and added the PE mirrors.