The Dragon Rises: Hongdu Q-5 "Fantan" - finished

"Fantan" and base finished

ready to fly CAS missions, using guns, rockets and two FAB-250 bombs to support ground troops

The aircraft is held in place by a strong magnet. The base can be adjusted in height.

The long painting war continues. :-D

The Dragon Rises: painting the Hongdu Q-5 "Fantan" part#3

Today a considerable amount of time went into cleaning the panel lines' excess paint away. After I was done with this step, I added some weathering and dirt to the aircraft, using washes and Tamiya weathering set powders. I think I am going to leave the Fantan this way, finally adding pilot, canopy, payload and base with the next steps.

The Dragon Rises: painting the Hongdu Q-5 "Fantan" part#2

Today I've painted the panel lines. I used Revell's matt black enamel paint, thinned down with turpentine. This needs to dry until tomorrow evening and then I have to carefully clean any excess paint around the recesses. Stay tuned.

The Dragon Rises: painting the Hongdu Q-5 "Fantan" part#1

I have spent this afternoon with painting little details here and there, that I wanted to be finished before the gloss varnish layers are applied.

The decals have been taken from various Soviet aircraft and out of the vaccu-form kit itself. Surprisingly they went on quite easily although they were already pretty faded (probably very old). Good thing about faded colours is: it looks natural on an aircraft that is used by the Chinese navy.

The decals were applied using the Micro Set and Micro Sol solutions. I will let everything dry over night and apply the varnish tomorrow. That will allow weathering and pin (panel) wash with oil paints next week.

I am really excited how the kit turned out. I would have never imagined I am capable of building a vaccu-form model. But I can also tell you: it was probably the one and only I will ever assemble. ;-)

The Dragon Rises: Hongdu Q-5 "Fantan" WIP #8

I have decided to give the Fantan a classic gloss white paintjob like its used with the PLA Navy air units. It just had the first layers painted on, so this is far from being finished of course. I painted the pilot (he's missing one arm, because otherwise I won't be able to fit the ejection seat into the cockpit - I'll glue it in place once he's in there).

Four FAB-250 low drag bombs that will go under the fuselage can be seen as well as a WIP of the Fantan's flight base.

This is what I am looking to achieve once completely painted:

The Dragon Rises: Hongdu Q-5 "Fantan" WIP #7

I have put primer on ;-) All coming together now. Barely visible that it was not an injection-mould kit.