First, a few introductory words… this is my 3rd. AC built since I quit building aircraft for armor in the mid/late 80’s so there is a lot of room for improvement on skills. The first two 1/48 AC are not display worthy as they had horrendous fit issues and my paint jobs were test runs for other projects. But this one, I wanted to do well on and so I think that I did. There are a few things still to add- the aerial mast with wiring, the aileron counter-weights and some other picky weathering things. I have to get used to handling something with a 12" wingspan… All shading was done in post-painting with heavily thinned Tamiya Clear Smoke.
The kit… what can I say, Hasegawa knocked this one out of the park IMO. There was no need for putty anywhere as all parts fit perfectly. Surface detail is well molded and looks crisp. Plenty of room for superdetailing- I built it straight OOB. This is a fantastic kit, if you can find it.
The overall finish looks good, just a few things that could be touched up, from what I can tell in the pics. Looks like there was a little masking trouble around the white areas, and it looks like some paint was pulled off the lower surfaces of your flaps, tape maybe? Both things that can be touched up though. Nice clean build other than those two items. Welcome back to the aircraft zone - if this is #3, you’re settling in quickly!
Vance- good eyes! There’s enough mistakes and errors on this to keep a referee in play all day! I had a terrible time with the masking tape pulling up the underlying paint. I touched up those areas with RLM 02, as I thought that it would “look like” chipped off paint. Probably won’t go that route again. But I did learn that I need to clean off the plastic after all the work and before the paint! I never had this issue of a mask pulling off paint when I do armor…
This is a big ole learnin’ process for me… and I love it.
Very nice! I’ve got Eduard’s 32nd E-4 Trop on the way and am looking forward to it. It’ll be my first 32nd build, I think. Certainly my first since I started caring what I was doing!
Is that a whitewall tailwheel? Nice!
A few comments, if I may. Not meant to be disparaging in any way - I really like this build - just some stuff you may want to consider as you 1) finish this one up and 2) take on the next AC build
The main wheels look too black and shiny for my taste. You may want to dirty them up with some pigments or a dusting of Tamiya Buff or similar.
I love the shading on the underside…I use Tamiya Smoke as a base for exhaust stains and such, but have never used it for post-shading. Think I might have to reconsider!
The shading seems a bit light on the upper surfaces, especially around the canopy and back along the fuselage.
No gun stains. I’m not a fan of big, overdone gun stains, but most wartime 109 pics I’ve seen show some blackening in the gun “channels”, especially right around the barrels. Same with exhaust stains, but I assume those are coming…
I’m no expert on Trops, but with combat duty in North Africa and all the sun/sand/grit, I’d expect more fading and chipping.
Fermis- the kill marks are there, just on the port side. Did they mark them on both sides of the rudder? Leaving armor for these AC, I’m a total noob.
Hasegawa thoughtfully gives 4 different kill marks and laurels to use, but only 1 set each.
Doogs- the whitewalls are decals! Woot! As for shading and highlighting… after I used the clear smoke over the Futured paint, I went back with MM Flat highly thinned and mixed with 1 drop of MM sand to use as a flattening/highlighting agent. In person, it looks so much better and there is more layed on the upper surfaces than the undersides. I was trying to not overdo the shade/highlight effects as I tend do on other things. The gun channels (of which the gun barrels are probably set just a smidge too far back) were shaded during painting, as were all panel lines but I covered up most of that work in the final paint job so they got another couple of passes with the smoke. You’re right, they could use a little more definition.
While being far from contest-worthy, it has been a fun build and I highly recommend this kit to anyone.
I’ve heard that this kit is “cherry” and am still waiting on GM to get em in…heard it was the best of their 32nd scale 109 line…
More pics would be nice…some renditions of this plane suggest the white wing-tips weren’t applied on this particular a/c…Fermis did one in 48th a while back…
I like! Not much of a 32nd fan, no room for them. Your’s looks great though. Welcome back to the a/c world!
My only advice would be to photograph your subject in a less cluttered area. It detracts from the subject and the extra stuff in the shot eats up more memory. Use a sheet for a back sweep, something with no printed patterns or anything like that.
Daywalker, thanks for the props! What do you mean by the new spinner being worth the price of admission? It looks and builds up just like the 1/72 ones I had as a kid… its got good detail, but that isn’t saying much as there’s such little detail on it. I’m genuinely confused.
hkshooter- Room? I’ll worry about that later, when I have to sell my bed for the space needed to display my collection![:)]
I agree about the photography- those are pretty ugly display pics. I just wanted to show this off- I’m pretty happy with it as no other AC I’ve done has come out as well. But, there’s still a lot of room for improvement in those basic skills. AC aren’t armor…well, unless it’s a Sturmovik.
Thanks for looking and sharing, guys. I do appreciate it.
