Shultzie said;
After looking at my slides of the Jim's beautiful model....any chance of finding another canopy that is closer to the format, size and shape of the original? This one appears to be noticably "blunt in da' front and do you really want to lock yourself in with that baby blue base canopy floor & Alum.green primer head rest?
What I do to make the canopy have a steeper front slope is buy one way too large and cut the back off until I get the angle I want. I believe this is one of James' first attempts at the jet style canopy stunter so he is coming along nicely. It looks as if he is mocking it up in the pic as the top block flat spot from the spinner to the cockpit and canopy look like they are still being shaped.
If he goes with a dark grey tint, I can see the baby blue being OK, but I know that getting the cockpit colors to make sense takes some thought. I usually do black and green like a military fighter.
James,
Looking great. Maybe we can be an influence to get more detail into current stunters. I hate people referring to Stunters as 'lawn darts".
Tom,
It wouldn't matter if they refered to them that way or not for me. The detailed stunter is beautiful no matter if it has a slick no-profile canopy like the Genesis or Novi IV, or a jet style like the Formula S or Sabre, or a semi-scaler like one of Al's models. They are all what the builder brings to it through thoughtful detailing.
The Formula S was a stylized work of art, bringing the lithographic techniques of modern art of the time period to the surface of a model airplane. I built Renwal plastic kits with completely printed surface detailing when I was a child and that was as close to what Jim did as I have seen. Neat technique of continuing the rivet detail over the different trim colors with contrasting ink, a technique that I have used and really like.
That time period is a special era of stunters and it continued until the mid/late-seventies in models like the Tropicaire, Genesis, Stiletto, Sea Fury, and many others.
The tradition isn't dead, Ted Fancher's models always bring a detailed look of that era even with his "Extra"-like efficiency designs. There are many others, too.
Thank goodness there are modelers that desire to bring the careful polish and detail to the event still.
Chris...