VF-32 Swordsmen

by Ming Ho

This is my first Hasegawa Tomcat in 1/48 ever and I greatly enjoyed building it!  Despite the fact that some sanding and patching had to be done, it wasn't as horrifiying as I thought it would be.  Some of the aftermarket items I used were Twobobs VF-32 OEF decals, VF-Decals GE F110 nozzle decals, Steel Beach bombracks and a PTIDs screen, and Shawn Hull's GE F110 nozzles.  I truly believe that this kit is way over engineered by Hasegawa!  There are certain things that can be done in 2-3 steps, but Hasegawa decided to split them up into about 8-10 steps!

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The entire model was painted up with mainly Model Master Acrylics and some Gunze Sangyo paints.  I used both pre-shading and post-shading and some of Brian Marbrey's fading technique to achieve the look.  I also used The Detailer water-based solution for washing the panel lines and landing gears.  The GPS dome was actually used from one of the laser-heads pieces from a Hasegawa Apache kit.

I am planning to have my own little Tomcat Sunset/Farewell project and I was hoping to build one hi-viz jet from every squadron that participated in OEF/OIF and perhaps the hi-viz jet from the official Tomcat Sunset. 

Due to the fact that I used Twobobs VF-32 decals, it basically means I haven't started on any (with the last cruise markings) yet... because the Twobobs VF-32 decals did not come with home-coming markings for the VF-32 CAG jet.  Instead, I should have used the Hasegawa/Cartograf decals from the VF-32 kit, which had an additional special nose art and different crew names.  Oh well.  I guess this will be a practice one for me.

I hope you enjoy the pics!

Ming (raptor22)

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