Better Bomb Tank Shape on the F-16 Kit

The bomb or tank wing details on the Odd'l Rockets F-16 kit were a compromise. Being a small vendor I certainly couldn't afford to have molds made for short run kits. Carved dowels were used for the larger tanks under the wings. They look good, but the shape could be better.

Using a pencil sharpener, knock off the rear end. You don't have to make a real sharp point, just remove some of the excess dowel.

On the left, the edge to be removed was marked with a pencil.

Make small chip cuts smoothing out the curve.

Wrap some 220 grit around the dowel and turn it against the sandpaper like a slow moving lathe.

After that, sand up and down as shown in the inset picture.

Here's the new shaped tank next to the F-16 tank. Both look fine but the new shape is better and more streamlined.

F-16 Canopy!

Work continues on the new F-16 Fighter Fleet kit.
A big hurdle was making a workable clear canopy. I didn't want to go the easy route and include one made of card stock. What really set off the Centuri kit was the clear canopy with the decal details underneath.
After many revisions and test flights the real work starts on the instructions.

First and Second Prototype Comparisons

The previous posts showed the first prototype build.
To the left is the second Little Green Man Prototype and the final kit version.

Anytime an original design is finished, I'll look at it close and wish some things were different.
This design went through subtle changes between the first and second versions.




The finished model is on the left.
The belt buckle is slightly smaller and an oval shape.
If you cut it out carefully, the buckle will have a black border.
The hands now have individual fingers. The finger and toe nails are now green.



The angle of the feet are turned up, closer to vertical.
The feet are a bit larger.
The green toe nails are bordered in black and have a more defined shape.

The upper half of the model stayed pretty much the same.

Odd'l Rockets Little Green Man Prototype Finished!

This was a fun one, a little like the Pigasus in some of the design elements.

It uses the same nose cone, engine mount and body tube as the Pig.

I added a white card stock tooth. It looks much better than the clear area on the water slide decal.

There are many visual levels to this design. The eyes are raised, the white tooth looks raised and the small hands aren't in line with the two front legs.

I didn't show it in the build pics, the pipe cleaner antennas were white glued into the holes drilled earlier.

From some angles the LGM looks a little angry.
Straight on it just looks goofy.








Here's the view from the back, I've yet to add the ray gun on the left side.
The angled out feet will provide base drag and could improve stability.
A 12" Odd'l Rockets parachute rounds out the build.

Little Green Man Prototype Build, Part 9, Paint and Fingernails

White undercoats were sprayed.
Two separate coats, light sanding between coats to remove any glue boogers and rough areas.

The Key Lime Green Rustoleum paint followed.
No masking, just a light green overall. The decals and decor pieces will make the model.

I should have made the fingernails on water slide decal paper.
For the prototype they were cut out of blue trim Monokote.
It was hard to get them to the right oval shape, some were very small.
(In the kit these will be water slide decals) 

Three nails were cut for two hands, six in total.
(In the kit the hands will have just two fingernails) 
12 more were cut for the four nails on the three feet.

They were places on the tip of my hobby knife. Nothing was burnished down until the spacing was right. It took a few tries to get everything in place.

Little Green Man Prototype Build, Part 6, Arm and Eye Gluing

The small arms were glued on just above the two front fin legs.
These were set back to the halfway point around the tube, at 180 degrees.

The eyes were a different story.
The larger eye goes to the left of center. The top of the oval is almost even with the top of the nose cone.

Set each eye on the nose cone and lightly trace around with a pencil.

For a flatter gluing surface, the gluing area is sanded flat with 220 grit on a sanding block. Don't sand all the way to the sides of the drawn oval, keep the flat sanded area inside the line by about 1/16".


This flattened oval makes a larger gluing area and allows the flat eyes to better sit into the nose cone curve.

The eyes are glued on.

Note the top of both eyes are turned out. The right eye is set slightly higher than the base of the left eye.