After hearing some rumours that Qatar might be taking some of the ex RAF Harrier pilots and getting some Typhoons, I decided to do a what-if scheme for the Qatari Airforce.  I settled on a sand coloured camo based on David Aungst's great collection of camo jobs for the Rafale, and inspired by his great looking Turkish Typhoon.  I think they look so much better than in the gray colour.  I took a 1/48 Italeri I picked up for a tenner in the bargain basement section of my local model shop.  It went together really well and had a great time making it, albeit there were a few minor errors but I don't think they detract from the overall finish.  I am pretty new at this and having got back into it I am learning lots of techniques I never thought about when I was making my own airforce with tube glue and paintbrushes at 14!!!  I will always use bare metal for masking the canopies, I will take my time sanding and getting a smooth finish, I will spray light even coats, I will never use liquid mask for a whole aircraft!  Haha, it was a truly great learning experience.

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The mottle look came around after royally being left with jagged edges from the original mask. I then decided to add hundreds of small balls of blue tac all over, carefully leaving the bad edges exposed to be covered up by the final overall colour.  I think it looks pretty cool, and until the decals went on looked like one my friends leopard geckos.  The scorpion was painted on as the original decal was much too light on the background.  The decals were from Skys decals and the roundels were from Zotz decals. 

I added a couple of Libyan flags to show that it had been involved in the missions in Libya and that it had a couple of aircraft "retirements" to it's name. I really enjoyed the whole build and look forward to trying to improve upon each model as time goes on. I hope you enjoy it and that it may spark some more "What if's", in everyones collection, the mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be lit. Later!

CJ

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