1/72 Hasegawa F/A-18F VFA-103 Jolly Rogers

Gallery Article by Michael "Chewie" Choo on Dec 17 2014

 

      

G'Day all from Down Under! I'd like to share my latest build with you all.

Ever since I finished building my Academy F-14 Jolly Rogers a while ago, I have always wanted to build a Super Hornet version of it. One that I can mount right next to the F-14 in an in-flight pose. After searching for quite some time, I finally found the Jolly Rogers decals made by Jasmine Decals on eBay. The biggest problem with Jasmine Decals is that their so-called "instruction sheet" only shows the placement of the larger and more visible decals. I had to refer back to the Hasegawa instruction sheet for placement of the majority of the small stencils.

I built this in parallel to Revell's Jolly Rogers Super Hornet as part of ARCforums "The Hornet's Nest Group Build". This was the 3rd Hasegawa "F" Super Hornet that I built. I think because of experience, I found that I needed a bit less putty, especially for the wings.

One disappointment that I have with this build was the frosting on the windscreen that I only discovered after unmasking. Oh well... Not much I can do about it. To be honest, I can't remember when was the last time this happened to me. 

 

Click on images below to see larger images

The AIM-9X came with the kit. Although the kit also came with AIM-120A/B, I decided to use the ones from Hasegawa Aircraft Weapons V that I already painted and decaled a few years ago (when I built my very first "F" Super Hornet). The AGM-84E also came from Hasegawa Aircraft Weapons V, also painted and decaled a few years ago. The GBU-12's came from Academy "A" Hornet Blue Angels boxing. I took some of these pics before I realised that I forgot to install the fin antenna on the spine.

For this build, I used predominantly LifeColor paint for a change. The following is the list of paint that I used for this build. I thinned the LifeColor with distilled water mixed with Windex (@ 50:50).

  • LifeColor FS36375

  • LifeColor FS36320

  • Mr Metal Color Dark Iron

  • Mr Metal Color Iron

  • Mr Metal Color Aluminum

  • Tamiya semi-gloss black (X-18)

  • Tamiya Smoke (X-19)

  • Tamiya gloss clear (X-22)

  • Gunze flat clear

  • Oil wash

If I have to name one lesson that I learned while building this bird, it would have to be: DO NOT build more than 2 parallel projects!! Because I was working on 5 parallel birds, 4 of which were Super Hornets, I made quite a few mistakes that I should not have made. Still, I'm still pretty happy with the result, despite the frosting on the windscreen.

Hope you like it!

Michael "Chewie" Choo

Click on images below to see larger images

 

      

Photos and text © by Michael "Chewie" Choo