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Here's my 1/48 Monogram F-20A Tigershark.
The fit is surprisingly good for this old kit. Very little putty needed
at the exhaust joint to the tail. Other than that, the kit came together
fairly quick. The paint scheme is another story. I didn't like the
red and white stripes as the original demo. scheme, nor the dark tactical gray
as it was intended to be, for a simple reason. I don't trust the old
Monogram kit decals. I could not find after market decals for it in
1/48. I decided to paint it as one of those adversary F-5's schemes.
This way, there are many choices for me to chose from. While going thru
a list of schemes, I decided to make up my own "what-if" scheme, so
no one will say if it was wrong. I painted it for the USMC VMFA(AW)-224,
Fighting Bengals. I don't have anything against the Air Force, but if I
have my options, I will make it as MY beloved Corps' fighter. The actual
colors and patterns were from the leopard sharks. Tigersharks don't have
the patterns that I like.
Paints were from Model Master Enamels.
Mango and flat black for the tail band. I sprayed the black color first.
Cut out small stripes of masking tape, and masked off the black.
The Mango color went on next. FS20400 Tan for the bottom of the
fuselage. RAL8020 Afrika Braun(F) for the upper fuselage. Dark Tan
30219 for the spots and larger patches, and Italian Dark Brown(F) as the dark
border of the patches. I used my single action Paasche air brush.
For the patches with dark border, I painted the darker color first and filled
in with the lighter color in the middle. I found out that way I still
have a thin border around the patches without actually spraying the fine line
around them. Again, the lighter color overspray would tone down the dark
color.
A few coats of Future, and it's ready for
decaling. The decals were from Hi-Decal
Line for the F-18's. It's the only one that have the Low-viz marking
for the VMFA-224 in this scale. Other stencils were from my scrap box.
Monogram kits have raised panel lines.
Oil wash applied in the wing flaps, and that was it.
The kit comes with a belly tank, and a set of
Sparrows and Sidewinders. I got the
kit for ten bucks from E-Bay. I know, you can get this kit even cheaper
at the local meets. For the F-5's fans, this F-20A was the renamed of
the F-5G. So get out the kit and go wild with the adversary scheme.
Have fun with it, and happy modeling.
Thang
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