1/72 ESCI F-104A "Starfighter" by Christian Page
						The kit is the old ESCI's one. It was first in bare-metal sheme painted about 10 years ago for a demonstration of painting with Testor's Metalizer products. The model was "dusting" on my shelf since then. I decided to recycle it to inprove my airbrushing technic with acrylics. The subject: I want to model a camouflaged Starfighter in PAF use during the 1971 war. Following my references, there were about 10 Jordanian F-104'sho served with the N°9 Sqn PAF. The coulours : The RJAF's Starfighter wore a desert camouflage  about the  same as the  Israeli's one. I used Gunze Sangyo acrylics H309 green, H310 Tan, H313 Sand for the upperside camouflage and H314 for the underside . I have never seen a wartime photo of those RJAF, so the camouflage scheme is more a "guess" than the real thing. The airbrush technic : First, I have applied a "pre-shading" in black along the main panel lines. Then I have paint the underside in very light blue masking it when dry. The next step was to airbrush the three colors of the upper camouflage,  beginning with the sand, then the tan and the green. Each color was masked with liquid mask (Humbrol Maskol). After that, I have overpainted each color with a very lighter shade of the original color. Those lighter shades must be very diluted (2 parts of alcohol for 1 part of paint) and applied with a very low pressure (about 1, 1,5bar). The weathering : I always use a wash of black oil paint. Apply it along the panel lines, then wip the excess off with a soft tissue. The decals : the roundel are home-made (printed on withe decal), the fin flag come from my spare-box. The letter "D" on the tail is a dry -transfer. Regards, Christian "Full Metal" Page member of IPMS Belgium