Profile Photo
Christina Swank
12 articles

Tamiya’s 1/48 F-16 Thunderbird

February 11, 2019 · in Aviation · · 18 · 3.2K

Here is my build of 's Thunderbird. Kit went together beautifully as one would expect from Tamiya. The challenge with this one was the white paint, and the decals. Painting white, and trying to keep it clean was quite the pain. The decals were a complete nightmare. The red on the nose is actually painted on. There are a ton of touch ups on the decals as well, just because they were so fragile. I scratch built the intake and exhaust covers, as well as the wheel chocks and static dis-chargers. It is a beautiful jet once finished, and looks fast just sitting there.

Reader reactions:
8  Awesome

9 additional images. Click to enlarge.


18 responses

  1. VERY well done, Christina. You're right: even stationary it looks like it's going fast! Well done on those colors painted and the decal work.

  2. Nice job on a not-so-easy build...came out really well. I like it! 🙂

  3. Yeah, the decal work on this is haaarrdddd. You have an excellent result.

  4. Nicely done Christina, I like it.

  5. Christina, I agree, white is really tough sometimes, but you've done a nice well with it here. Your decal work looks excellent. I can't imagine how much fun that giant bird on the bottom must have been ! Looks really good !

  6. Stunning Thunderbird, Christina, thanks for your post and welcome to imodeler!

  7. 🙂 … Greetings … 🙂 :
    Nice, clean and sharp work on this one Christina. You did a very good use of your painting skills to overcome the RED portion of the nose. The cockpit looks well accomplished.

Leave a Reply