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Greg Kittinger
122 articles

Testor/Italeri AC-119K Stinger Gunship 1/72

May 6, 2015 · in Aviation · · 16 · 6.7K

I just finished this one in time for our club's contest April 18th. Built out of box except for flight crew, and some stretched sprue for the whip arial on the nose and some cabling on the illuminator. All decals were from the spares box as the ones from the kit were just way to thick with old glue. All in all I was happy with the outcome, except that the day before the contest as I was putting in the landing light lenses I lost one in the shag carpet! Had to improvise and am going to have to re-do what I did (nope - won't let you see it!).

Since I don't airbrush, once I finished the paint and weathering, I gave the entire aircraft a dullcoat finish with MM spray cans, then brushed on Future on the black to bring that back to a gloss finish as on the real aircraft. I didn't spend much effort "weathering" the black undersides, but did the usual post shading of panel lines and panels with pastel powders. No oil dot filtering on this one.

I finally remembered to take a pic of the flight deck before I sealed up the airplane. Since I always build "in-flight," much of the work in that space get's lost once the canopy is closed up. I typically do just enough detailing to make it look realistic enough, but don't spend too much effort since it's hard to see once finished.

I modified the crew by filing off their oxygen masks and attempting to leave a "nose." That's why they look a bit like zombies in the pics - but you really can't tell in the finished product.

Reader reactions:
11  Awesome

10 additional images. Click to enlarge.


16 responses

  1. Nice work, Greg...and a man after my own heart, so to speak. I refer to the fact that you seldom (if ever) airbrush and you don't spend time detailing what won't be visible. And posing all your builds "in flight" alleviates a lot of potential 'problems' AND saves time (you must have quite the stash of landing gear parts, huh?).

  2. Nice looking build and an interesting take on a boxcar.

  3. Normally I'm lukewarm on those raised panel lines, but when they're done right and treated well (like you've done here!) they really look snappy. Great work!

  4. that looks cool, and awesome brushwork! masterfully done Greg!

  5. Nice work Greg.
    I was looking at the kit the other day and noticed the raised panel lines.
    And the vague instructions.
    But saying that, I think I am going to like it.
    Looking at your build has given me more confidence to start it in the future.
    Well done mate.

  6. That's really well done. The in-flight pose suits it well.

  7. Nice one there Greg i like the way you accentuated the raised panel lines i didn't realise they were raised looking the first couple of pictures, nice job well done

  8. Hello Greg...Very nicely done. I certainly agree with Mark and others that have commented on the nice treatment you gave the raised panel lines. Always good to see something just a bit different posted and the AC-119 you've build is a fine modeling job.

  9. Outstanding build! And I agree seeing something different is great!

  10. Greg,
    Great job on this. Your paint work is beautiful and hardly looks like it was done with a brush

  11. Very nice Stinger Greg! Well done!

  12. Raised panel lines: if you want to build a C-119, Noratlas, Constellation or some of the other übercool releases Italeri has blessed us with, we just have to make live with that. Or rescribe, which in fact is a lot easier on such a big aircraft! Nice one!

    Magnus

  13. Nice work Greg. I have to admit I didn't notice the raised panel lines until I read some of the comments, I was too busy admiring the rest of this fine build. Good job.

  14. Great looking Stinger, don t think that the raised lines are a real problem, Italeri s Raised lines on older kits are way better than the newer trenches.

  15. The way you've treated the panel lines really helps to raise the level of this model, nice looking plane.

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