Tamiya 1/32 F-16C, Converted to a F-16AM

By Niels Sørensen

It is time for another F-16! This time it is one that is pretty special to me. I first saw the "Orange Lion" at a local airshow in 2012 and I thought it was the most beautiful thing ever. Unfortunately, the weather was really poor so they mostly made (VERY) high speed passes. This was even before I got back into modelling so at the time I had no idea I would be building a model 12 years later, but there you go.

The model is the Tamiya Thunderbirds kit, with a KASL tail conversion. The ‘Smokewinders’ are from WANDD Studio and the pilot is from Reedoak. The travel pod is also from KASL.

All markings are painted on except the data stencils around the cockpit. The paintjob was really a handful and tested my patience to the limit. The camera does not pick it up very well but the orange colors are all metallic. I used the two-part set from MRP on top of a gloss black base with some highlights in silver. I am satisfied with how it came out in the end, but I will not be attempting to do it again anytime soon. The paint masks were cut with the incredible help from DN models once again.

I primed the nose in light grey and left it to dry for weeks while the rest was painted. I then painted the black color and with a new curved scalpel blade, I carefully scraped off the black paint from the raised strips. It only took one pass with only very minor clean up.

To accentuate the panel lines, I used the washes from Flory Models. They are clay-based washes (basically mud) so they can very easily be manipulated with water. I mostly use the one called "Dark Dirt."

I want to thank Shujaa for helping out with a ton of images of the real aircraft he got from a personal walk-around. Incredible stuff.

I couldn´t resist including a shot of this one in formation with my "Dannebrog" model!

Tamiya 1/32 F-16C, Converted to a F-16AM

By Niels Sørensen

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