1/48 Meng F35I Adir
As a professional theologian and Eastern Orthodox deacon and religion teacher I was always fascinated by the names used in Isralei military given to planes, tanks… Merkava, Achzarit, Sufa, Barak… all of them have strong theological meaning. Also, as someone who is in love with planes I was interesting in Israeli modification of F35, or F35I Adir. I’m not too much into 5th gen planes, ther are so generic, uninterestic… but I had an opportunity to obtain Meng’s 1/48th scale F35I Adir for some very reasonable price, and I couldn’t resist.
At first I was somehow in fear because of Ram panels, how to correctly paint them without too much trouble.
I decided to do this lovely model OOB, and to arm it with weapons used by IAF.
Whole build process was real joy, without any trouble at all. This model is suitable for almost every modelers level, in terms of building. Painting process is completely different, because it requires serious approach.
Only problem, which was completely caused be me, was with wings, with connecting them to body, I made some problems while I was assemly process and I had some slight gap on the place of jining them together with the fuselage. At first I used putty to fill the gap, but it was too slowly for me, and I made a mistake, I put some superglue and I had to do some serious sanding and polishing job, and rescribing and reriveting. But, apart from that, everything was excellent.
I primed model with Mr Surfacer black, I saw some imperfections and corrected them. For main paint job I used some Ak and Mig paints, and some veryyy old Italeri paints. Also, I extensively used AK RC Markers for some areas like weapons, wheels, cockpit areas… And they proved to be very good, almost excellent for use!
The main question was what to do with RAM panels. From the star I knew that I’m not going to buy some aftermarket masks, because they are to expensive, and I thought that it would be more interestin to do some old school modelling approach. I was thinking about masking whole plane and painting RAM with airbrush.
But, in the end I decided to use some sharp round 5.0 and 0.0 brushes and paint it by hand. I took some old Italeri grey color and started painting it freehand with the sound of music in the background. It took me some 5 or 6 hours to complete it. I had to do some modifications there and there, but from the start I was counting that after wash it would be good looking. And, after decaling (for the first time after many years I put all the decals and stencils on model) and varnishing it, I did wash and I was satisfied with the outcome. I decided to do some minor weathering because this is very expensive plane, and there is no chance to see it damaged, rotten, schratched …
So after some 10 days, this is completed model. Very recommendable!
Enjoy and feel free to comment! Cheers!
I like your result..very much
Thank You a lot 🙂
This turned out very well. You have great brush painting skills. The F-16 is the most modern fighter I have any interest in as far as models go.
Thank You! I will agree with You, in fact, there is, for me, none of aesthetics in modern jets, unfortunately.
She’s a beaut ! Yes you certainly do have marvelous brush painting skills. A build you can be very proud of. Well done!
Thank You 🙂
I thought that maybe it will be more demanding to paint Ram by hand, but for sure it was much more faster than masking it.
Very nice model, Djordje!
Thank You, Spiros. I'm satisfied with the result 🙂 Some areas could be done better, but this is hobby 🙂
Excellent build, Djordje @sheol
Your brush painting skills are amazing.
Thank You, my friend!
Great result. My life would be so much easier if I could get results like this with paintbrush...
Thank You! Just take Your time, be ready to sacrifice good bruah during paint process and thats it 🙂
I used acrylics for RAM.
Fantastic F-35, your paintwork and weather turned out excellent! That is some serious weaponry...wow.
F35 in stealth mode is boring, Beast mode sounded and looked much more interesting 🙂
That's a marvellous build and finish, amazing brush work Djordje.
Cool subject 😊 looks great 👍
Thank You, Sir:)
Excellent work! I'm like you - not a huge fan of 5th gen aircraft. I do have a 1/72 F-35 in the stash and I'm not sure I'll ever pull it out, but you never know. If I do, that approach to the RAM sounds like a great alternative.
Thank You Greg! I decided to paint RAM by hand because I didn't want to lose much time in masking process. Modern jets are well kept and regularly maintened, so there are not so much room for weathering, and there look are so much into aesthetics.