This is my first entry to ARC and I can honestly say if it wasn't for all the help I gathered here I never would have been able to finish this model.  This is also only my 3rd model since I started into the hobby about 15 months ago.

I bought this kit with the intentions of building it first, but, things don't always go as planned. Its a Tamiya 1/48th Thunderbolt II. It has tons of gaps, poor fitting and very little detail. If you see this kit in the hobby shop turn and run.

I used a Legends resin cockpit set and Eduard Photoetch for further detail.  I decided to copy cpt Paul Johnsons Battle damaged A-10 from the Gulf War era. Photos of his aircraft can be found at Pat's World.com under battledamaged a-10s 82/664.

I painted the model with Tamiya acrylics and used pastels to darken the panel lines. I scratch built the damaged area with polysyrene sheet and channel.

After painting was finished I post shaded the panel lines with black pastels and then dusted the top of the model with white pastels in the center of the panels to simulate sun bleaching. Decals were out of the box and look like cr-- but they were the only ones with the right insignias available. The aircraft's number 664 were dry transfers.

Hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
Trevor