“Helldiver” can refer to multiple things; one of which is a WW2 bomber, and another being a multiplayer video game where you dispense copious amounts of FREEDOM™ throughout the galaxy by cheerfully massacring anything that has the undemocratic bad taste to be non-human. Think Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers with the satire knob cranked up to 11 and then ripped off.
The overlap between fans of each kind of Helldiver is probably tiny, but I saw this kit at my LHS and my brain refused to let this dumb idea go.
Assembly went smoothly for 90% of the build, with the exception of some incredibly flimsy landing gear attachments, and bombs that refused to fit inside the bomb bay without cutting off the attachment framework for the bay doors. All that remained to do was a coat of metallic black, and a properly virulent shade of yellow trim (8:1 Tamiya XF-3 Yellow + XF-4 Yellow-green). Add an “are we the baddies?” amount of skull logos, and we have a (hopefully) amusing bit of nonsense ready to die horribly-- err, go into glorious battle with the enemies of Super Earth!
That’s beautiful!