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judgeanon · 1 year ago

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Plastic Skies - Model 11: F-22 Raptor “Mobius-1″

As soon as I had a couple of finished models under my belt, I knew what I wanted my “Final Boss” to be. There was one plane that I really wanted to not just build, but build right; to do the absolute best job I could with it. It took me a while to get there, and there were a few bumps and stops along the road, but in the end I managed to not only build it, but also close the circle of what had inspired me to start modelling again.

It was time to become an Ace. Or at least try.

So, the F-22 Raptor. I love that thing.

Everything about it is just cool as fuck to me. Its shape, silhouette, hidden weapon bays, everything. It's just square and sharp enough to look futuristic while still having enough curves to still look like a fighter jet and not some jank spaceship.

The other reason why I love the Raptor is Novalogic’s old F-22 RAPTOR flight sim from 1997. At the time, and for a long time, it was the best flight game I’d ever played, looking and feeling lightyears ahead of any other flight game at the time. Even if the Raptor has famously never been in any actual combat or downed any enemy planes (which as far as I’m concerned is the best thing that can happen to any weapon), it’s sure seen a lot of virtual warfare. Especially in another series...

The thing about Ace Combat is that I’d never really played them until a bit under a year ago. As I mentioned when I started this series, I knew they existed and I’d had a few close brushes with them, but I’d never sat down and played any until Ace Combat 7, which promptly blew my mind. Soon, through the power of emulators, I made my way through every single game in the series. And one of the things I noticed was that every Ace Combat is actually two games in one: there’s the game before you unlock the F-22 Raptor and the game after.

In pretty much every Ace Combat, the Raptor is a late-game unlock, and always one of the best. It’s faster, moves better, and just using it feels like dropping the difficulty level down at least one. On top of that, it’s been featured in the covers of a lot of them, including the very first home release:

So playing through the series really reignited my love for the damn thing, to say the least. And when I entered the hobby shop for the first time and spotted that Revell kit up there, I knew I was going to end up building one sooner or later. But I held off for months, building other models, learning every technique I cared ot try and accumulating an arsenal of tools. Along the way, I also ran into something wonderful: an eBay listing for a decal sheet full of emblems from Ace Combat, including everything I could need to build not just any Raptor, but THE Raptor. Mobius-1′s Raptor from Ace Combat 04.

As it turned out, there had been an official AC04 Raptor model kit released some years ago, and while getting my hands on one was out of the question, the instructions were easy to find online. Turns out the model used the exact same mold as the Revell one, and the instructions included a color guide that helped me find the exact shades of gray used on the official thing. You’ve actually seen that gray paint in my F-16 and Fairey Swordfish models. It’s not the easiest paint to work with, but I was happy to have it and the decals. Between them, I had everything I really needed... except the model itself.

Unfortunately, 2023 didn’t have the best of starts for me, especially when it came to money. Long story short, my job started paying me late. Like, very late. Insultingly late. “Three months late” late. Although my family generously loaned me enough cash to make it through, it was a very upsetting era of getting paid, spending a third of it paying last month’s debts, then having to stretch what was left for two months until I got paid again and the cycle started again. It’s why I’m deeply indebted not just to my family, but also to the friend who sent me those old WWII models I posted about last time, since the frustration of having all these tools and nothing to use them on was really getting to me.

Eventually, in early March, I finally got paid and after clearing up a bunch of leftover debts, I said “Fuck it”. Whatever else was going on in my life, I decided I needed something to do other than worrying about money. The price of the kit had gone up since the last time I’d seen it, which was frustrating but also made the decision to buy it even easier. Get it now, before inflation made it any harder to grab. Unlike every other plane I’d built so far, I told nothing about it to my family. A part of me felt terribly guilty about it. Where did I get off, buying toy planes when less than two weeks ago I was asking my brother for grocery money? It was childish, irresponsible, and at the time, utterly necessary. I was increasingly feeling like I would go insane if I waited one more day.

Unfortunately, I’d still end up waiting one more week to really get started, since just as the kit arrived, my mom invited my brother and I to a short vacation trip. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to finish the kit, but by then I was so upset by the whole thing that I nonetheless spent an afternoon focused purely on the tailfins. Stupid as it sounds, I just... really needed it.

The trip was fine. Good times were had, new places were explored, mountains were hiked, and I can’t say I hated it or anything. But the closer we got to the end, the more I remembered those two tailfins drying out alone and the other 114 parts I hadn’t touched yet. It was late at night when I finally got back home, and that night I set everything up to get started first thing in the morning.

Unfortunately, that morning I woke up to a pretty troubling phone call. My dad had some health issues, and ten minutes later I was hailing a cab to go ride an ambulance with him to the hospital. I left home at around 9 AM that day, and only got back at 7:30 PM. He’s safe now and made a full, if lengthy recovery, but the days and weeks of having to be ready to drop everything and rush to the hospital to check on him quickly became grating. As with the trip, I found myself living for someone else, putting everything else I wanted to do on hold for the sake of others.

It didn’t last long. Once I was sure dad was out of danger and comfortable in the hospital, and once the rest of the family had started mobilizing to help, I once again said “Fuck it” and finally dove right into the Raptor, making it my personal anchor, a little thing I was making just for myself and nobody else.

The build started alright, but quickly ran into some trouble. A few of the parts were a hard fit, and the fuselage had gotten bent and warped a little in the box. Plus, I figured painting some of it would be a pain once the whole thing had been built, so I started painting some pieces as I went along. Which was absolutely the right choice, but it meant a fair bit of stop and go.

Something I did decide early on was to go “wheels up” with this one, not doing the landing gears. I figured an Ace Combat plane would be best displayed in flight, all weapons at the ready. I’m glad I made that call, because the build was already giving me enough headaches without the wheels.

Those little edges across the plane’s contour were particularly troublesome, since they required a lot of masking tape to work. I’m not terribly good at masking yet, and if you compare the two sides of the plane, you can tell. Still, it really was nice to see everything finally taking shape.

I also skimped on the armaments a little. The kit came with tons of decals for all the missiles, but I have a lot of trouble with the little stripe ones that usually go on them, and doing it for eight different missiles was daunting to say the least. I knew that alone was going to be a whole day’s worth of work. So I decided to save myself the trouble and just leave them like that.

The camo pattern, by comparison, was surprisingly easy to pull off. Using the paint guide from the official model, a couple of fine brushes and some very good gray paint, I did a much better job of it than the poor F-16.

The decals were a similar story. Funny enough, they actually came from three different sheets: the Raptor’s own, the Ace Combat one I’d bought off eBay, and that white marking in the center, which points to the Raptor’s fuel tank. Real Raptors use a different marking nowadays, but the one from Ace Combat 04 used this older model, which I got from the F-16′s sheet. In fact, that decal sheet was one of the reasons why I’d bought that specific F-16. By then I’d already decided to build Mobius-1, and I knew I’d be able to use that decal to give it that final touch.

Speaking of final touches, the panel lining also went shockingly well. This is one of the things I’ve gotten way better at, no longer having to rely on the sludge technique or anything. It’s still tricky and time consuming, but I can’t deny how much it improves a model, even when done sloppily. I also went and bought a box of transparent orange paint just for the cockpit, which in hindsight is... a little nuts. I have no idea what else I could possibly use that paint for, but I didn’t want this to be just another kit.

I left the weapon bays for last. Truth be told, I was a little terrified of them. Lots of small parts, two of which actually broke during the build and had to be tossed out. The end result is by no means perfect, and one of the side missiles is completely wrong, but by now I’ve learned to accept the small imperfections and let go of the things I can’t really fix (or am too scared to try). All poetry and self-improvement aside, I was squarely in that “let me just finish this” moment.

(It’s a good thing that I got the weapon bays done well too, because without a landing gear and a stand base, the plane currently rests on the bay doors. I should probably do something about that soon...)

Through the whole process, I still felt a few pangs of guilt over building this while dad was in the hospital. He wasn’t at risk or anything and I still made time to go see him, but there was enough shame to it that I didn’t really show the finished plane to any family member until about a week ago. And even then, I didn’t tell them when exactly I built it. As far as they know, I just willed it into existence in a couple days. It’s a terribly selfish thing to think, but after putting myself on hold for the sake of others in so many ways while also dealing with being routinely ignored by my work, having this one thing to make was important to me.

Eventually, the Raptor was finished. There’s a lot in it. Decals from three different sheets, paints and washes from about five different brands, a lot of material in general. There’s also a lot of me in it. Kid me, playing a 90s flight sim on an old Pentium and clumsily putting together cheap kits with cheaper glue, and adult me, falling hopelessly in love with a decades-old game series and comparing paint numbers to make sure I have the right shade of gray for the job. There’s some guilt and shame in it, but also pride and satisfaction. Even if I never built any other plane kits, I at least now had my Raptor. Not just a Raptor, or the Raptor, but my Raptor. With everything that entails.

(Also, you can’t understand how much I adore that the stabilizers are movable)

Things are getting better now. Dad’s way healthier and I’ve managed to more or less stabilize my finances, while also getting close to some new job offers. But for about a week, when everything else was a whirlwind of anxiety, this chunk of painted plastic was as good of an anchor as any. And I’m happy to say it’s not, in fact, the last kit I’ve made.

#My Stuff #Hobbies #Journals #This one gets a little personal too #Planes good #Ace Combat good #That's about all that really matters #Find some time for yourself

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