I think I finally figured out why I have a lot of unfinished aircraft in my stash: I hate to do the decaling. Most of the sheet nowadays have a bizillion decals to make the plane authentic, and I feel an obligation (to whom, I keep asking myself?) to put every last one of 'em on. Am I the only one who is crazy??? Or what do you guys do about this? I’d love to do a Tamiya 1/32 Phantom, but the thought of all those decals gives me the fantods. It’s tedious and after a certain amount of time my eyes start to cross. Any suggestions?
do yourself a favor and buy some real easy kit and build it with some paintjob you made up out of thin air. maybe you should just build smaller scale kits that don’t come with all the writing on them.
Modern Aircraft tend to have a lot of decals, mainly for stencils. Other eras have fewer decals, but can still be a pretty large number. On models with lots of decals, I never try to get them on in one session. I’ll usually spread the task over several days.
Ditto to what Rick said. Here’s how I go about it. I put as many tiny decals on as I can stand, then I put a big, colorful decal on to reward myself, then back to the tiny ones. I know it sounds goofy but it keeps me going!
Double ditto on spreading it out over a few days. I love this stage in the build but only for the marking as it starts to give the A/C personality. Not a big fan of stenciling.
Make ot fun to by singing along as you decal…
[:-^] 99 NO STEP decals on the wing…99 NO STEP decals… soak one down, slide it around…
Most of the aircraft that I build don’t have that mass amount of decals to put on because they are further along in their life spans and as they acquire new paint jobs, markings start to disappear. For instance, I have an F-4 form the late 60s to mid 70s. One version will have the complete set of markings on it and the second will have considerably less. I saw the first in a book and the second in real life in S.E.A. It should make a good contrast as well as a break from all those decals.
Yep. There are instances where you have to apply decals over decals. That and the shear amount of markings can mandate a 2nd or 3rd decalling session. The 1/48 D.VII I finished a while back had 88 decals on the upper wing alone. The lower wing gave me a break with only 70. [;)]
I agree about spreading it out, I sat down to decal last night and the first decal I placed(a very important one of course) tore into about 7 peices, got it on but it stressed me out to the umteenth degree. after that I just put it away for the night
There is really no need to used ever single decal on the model. You need to understand that when the plane is in service alot of stencil is worn over, painted over and some even removed. Most planes only show the most important stencils such as warnings on access panels and important data stenciling that maitenence crews must be read. Alot of tiny decals are not needed on a model unless your going for that factory fresh look. If your building a kit and want that in service look you can get away with leaving out unimportant data stencils you wont see on the actual aircraft. Photo refencence are a plus for this.
You could always do what I do- don’t put the decals on that you don’t want to. [;)]
I was building the Tamiya P-47D Razorback- a great kit- and when I got to the decals, I realized that it had about nine thousand little stencils and labels. So I put on about 10. Stuck 'em where I thought it would be interesting. On other kits, I just leave 'em off entirely if I’m not in the mood to mess with them.
It’s all about having fun. If you’re not having fun, don’t bother with the little decals. The way I build is not about being accurate- it’s about me enjoying my hobby.
When when we got our first F-15 I took some pictures and noticed that it had only the basic markings, armament box, ejection warnings and a few other basic warnings. All the others were long since painted over.
I just finished an F-4j from Hasegawa for a Vietnam navy vet. I put all of those fiddly decals all over the aircraft and almost lost my mind doing it. When I gave him the model he loved it but was stumped by all the decals all over the model. As he told me, out at sea they were painted over, worn out, or just dissapeared over time due to wear and tear. Said he never flew an F-4 where all the stencils were still on the aircraft.