After I finished painting my last two planes, I was going through my storage drawer, and found a couple of very old plastic models I'd ordered years ago and forgotten about-a pair of 1:300 scale Lockheed L-133 jet fighters. As I looked them over, I thought to myself, "You know, I might just be able to make a Mockingbird conversion out of these..."
The next few hours were spent doing a LOT of filing, cleaning and cutting. I cannibalized one model, clipping one of its fins so I could add the rudder on the underside of the Mockingbird's nose. I also built an engine/propeller out of green stuff to fill in the jet intakes in the tail. That was far and away the hardest part. I'm not good with green stuff, and every time my hand slipped, the engine came out misshappen and I had to start over I had to fight back the urge to throw something.
Eventually, though, I was able to assemble something I thought I could work with. In honor of the Mockingbird's creator, Patrick Koepke, I decided to go all-out and paint the most famous Mockingbird scheme from the Texas Air Rangers-Phillip "Flamberge" O'Malley's "Special When Lit." (Since there were example pictures here on the forums, this helped enormously.)
It was definitely a challenge (handpainting the tiny Republic of Texas flag was probably the toughest part from me aside from that cussed green stuff) but I'm not entirely displeased with the finished product. Comments and criticism welcome, and if you see this Patrick, I hope I did O'Malley justice!
