Thanks for the kind words folks.
Not a lot of daily reporting, decals usually take me a few days to get all done but that being said I generally enjoy the process nowadays. For the Tomcat, decals and stencils were done, the tail was painted and decaled, and finally the external stores have recieved their first layers of paint.
After the US Military had their mid-life crisis with the Phantom and must have apparently thought the maintenance crew couldn't remember their manuals so thought to stick stencils over ever single inch of the plane, it seems they began to chill out as time went on. As such, the F-14A comes with a nice sheet of stencils but nowhere near as much as the Phantom, and the F-14B right at the end of the types service life had even less. About 22~ no step stencils, then a few panels near the canopies being marked out. For reference, this is less stencils than my P-38 had! As such decalling was generally quick and simple and most of the time was giving the decals microsol/set.
With the decals on, including the famous skulls, it was time to give it a clear coat of which the Tomcat has two of now. Next week is going to be about weathering, first a panel line wash, followed by some oil filters, and also some oils to make that wing all oily and dirty where it sweeps.
The Cat also got some small parts painted, these are the missiles, phoenix racks, and the parts for the wing.
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Let's talk the wing parts, the inflatable airbags behind the wing as well as the part of the fuselage that covers the wing is supplied in multiple parts that can be switched out, meaning 4 parts for wings folded and 4 parts for unfolded. In the cabinet she will sit wings folded as it looks great, as is the only way it will fit! But all will be painted for the photos at the end. Originally a 10 week younger me decided 'MAGNETS ARE COOL' and to magnetise all the weapons, and I do think they are cool but ultimately my motivation is more about getting this in the cabinet finished than doing everything. I do like the idea of magnetising all the weaponry still and much like the interchangeable wing parts I'd love to show this plane with all manor of load outs when taking photos, and admittedly my Tamiya A6M5 which has a novel feature of having the drop tank be easily removable does often get put on/taken off every other month, but really I'm just not feeling the motivation to magnetise everything. As such I'll likely glue the hard points as 2x Sidewinders, 2x Sparrows, but keep the Phoenix and Sparrows on the belly magnetised (as that's as far as I've got so far). Ultimately I do like the idea magnets can provide for a bit of a gimmick much as some die-cast models have interchangeable parts such as wheels up or wheels down, bombs or not, but if I've learnt one thing this build it is that I do have much more love for the more vintage aircraft out there.
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Regardless, heres where we are at so far. Wings, Tails, Elevators, and Engines all aren't glued in yet.
