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Fox One 1/144 Chengdu J-20

By Matt Bittner

Introduction

As I mentioned in my First Look, I was hoping to have the Fox One 1/144 Chengdu J-20 built in a weekend.  It's entirely possible and more than feasible - until you have "life" interfere.  Between my First Look and now, there were personal events I had to take care of, and then airbrush problems to deal with.  But even now, with less than a month passing since my First Look, I do have the model finished, so in "Bittner time", this is a weekend build.

Construction

Since there are only nine parts to the kit, and coupled with a closed cockpit and wheel wells, there isn't much to assembly.  I did have some seam work I had to deal with on all parts added (minus the exhausts), but thankfully using Apoxie there wasn't much work after all.

I was able to work the exhausts in such a fashion they could be added at the end.  This really helped with painting.  While Fox One would have you paint the canopy a "gold color", I decided to go the typical route and paint it gloss light blue.  Personally I think it looks better.

The black I mixed using Polly Scale B&O Royal Blue and black, but it still came out looking - well - quite black.  Part of the problem was because I had to mist  some color over the top after the "airbrush incident" and it leaving the top surface chalky-looking.  But even still, it looks great, in my opinion.

After painting, the model was sprayed with Future prior to decaling.  I had some problems with the decals when using Future as a setting agent, for some reason.  Instead I found the typical "Micro Scale" decal method worked well.  After decals were on then another coat of Future was applied to seal them in.  At the end, I sprayed a dull coat using Xtracrylix.  I then glued on the exhausts and removed the canopy masks and we have one finished J-20.

One thing.  The nose probe was added using thin brass rod, and I had to drill the hole to accept it.  I not only used the instructions for placement, but also looked at the few images of the J-20 on-line.

Conclusion

An excellent kit. There were no blemishes at all with the resin and aside from a little bit of seam work, the kit went together very well.  If you find you can model without "life" getting in the way, then you should be able to finish this in short time.  I have plans of mounting my Fox One J-20 on a base, flying, and then putting other "stealth aircraft" underneath for comparison.  One of these days...

My thanks to Fox One for sending this excellent kit in for review, which is available for purchase through RADJAPAN.