Hi,
I am totally amazed at what Trumpeter has been putting out. I got the Karl Gun yesterday and was totally blown away by the sheer number of sprues in the kit. A lot of time I start my kits by removing all the mold lines etc and putting them in ziploc bags, sorted by relevance or sometimes by Step # in instructions. That way I can build without interruption when I finally get done with cleaning parts. Some kits I clean all the parts and put it away to build in the future. Cleaning parts is my least favorite thing, so I like to get it out of the way. There is NO WAY POSSIBLE to do that with the Karl Gun!!! Thee are just too many parts that would be too easily mixed up and youd be left with a big mess. This kit will have to be done step by step one part at a time. Whew!
But the kit is fantastic. All sprues bagged. The top and bottom hulls in seperate boxes as are the photo etched, tracks, and metal pieces. The care of their packaging is amazing. Tamiyas Dragon Wagon is similar.
It took me an hour or so just to give the kit and instructions the once-over. A glimpse! If I were to examine it closely I could be there for half the day. WoW!
Trumpeters 1/32 A-10 is on its way. I have, but not yet started, the Zil 157 with SA-2 Guideline Missile, though I have gone over the kit and instructions and it is another great great kit. It has a complete highly detailed engine, which I love yet Tamiya just never ever includes.
The Faun Tank Transporter is on my list, but I have the Dragon Wagon to build first so there is no hurry on the Faun.
The Leopold is another I’ll get someday in the not too distant future
All of these kits are absolutely fantastic. Trumpeter is the new king in my book. I don’t have any of their earlier stuff, so I don’t know how they are, but their newer stuff is amazing. They have BIG BALLS putting out huge kits like Leopold and Karl Gun. Congrats to them for that. Tamiya seems to be seriously lagging behind
Well, thats my comments. If you are just getting into modelling again and want to build something truly amazing albeit QUITE large projects, any of the above are highly rated!
Anyone who has put any of these kits together and can recommend the best aftermarket kits to get for any of them, please let me know. It gets confusing, with the different companies and different detail sets. Which is worth the dough? Also if you found any trouble spots that you found a good workaround for or just any plain old building tips for any of these kits, please chime in!
One downpoint i noticed right of the bat with the Karl Gun is that the rifling of the barrel is straight, it doesn’t swirl around like it would/should. It gets a “+” for being a single piece with no seams to try and sand etc like Dragons part, but it is such a prominent piece, you’d think they’d have got it right. I saw an aftermarket kit that has the coorect rifling on a piece of photo-etch, but I have no idea how hard it would be to insert and form into barrel. I’ll prob go with the kit piece. But that is minor considering how great the rest of the kit is