We’ve Been Here Before
So Red Pill is showing off their upcoming 1/32 F-4B Phantom at Nats this weekend, and as pictures are landing on the socials, one question keeps tearing through my brain:…
Modeling Rabbit Holes
Around the modeling interwebs, it seems like everyone is suddenly kung-fu fighting about “basic modeling skills” and, honestly, I have no desire to join in. It’s all stupid for a few reasons.
- There is no agreed-upon threshold for “basic”, so it’s all subjective.
- People who throw the term around non-ironically are usually humorless pedantic assholes, so whether or not it actually is condescending it comes across as such.
- And it’s just so…damn…tiresome.
Instead, I wanted to take a moment to explore some of the absurd rabbit holes that we can find ourselves running down as modelers. In the past 24 hours, I’ve encountered three. And as I was thinking on the drive to work this morning, the level of fucks given about such insignificant things is probably baffling to anybody on the outside.
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1/32 F-104G Part 2 – Painting a Distressed Finish
The worst part about working on a 1/32 scale F-104 is contending with its shape. The combination of a long, cylindrical body and short, stubby little wings makes maneuvering the…
1/32 Italeri F-104G Part 1 – The Pre-Build
Two and a half years ago, I put the finishing touches on Italeri’s big F-104, which I’d built as an Italian F-104S ASA.
At the time, I was not particularly kind to the kit.
The kit has just enough charm to pull you through the early stages of the build, and once you’re closing the fuselage, you’re kind of committed. There’s a lot of grumbling about the trench-like panel lines and all…honestly those didn’t bother me that much. What did bother me was the sloppy molding, which left separation lines on every damn thing, the sloppy fit, which is easy enough to hide with massive pieces like wings, but becomes apparent late in the build when antennas and such are 1) tiny, 2) in need of cleanup and 3) too big to fit in their damn holes.
Now, for whatever reason, I’m in the initial stages of building another.
Does this mean that I’ve revised my opinion of the kit? Not really. If anything, it means I get to go into the build with my eyes wide open to the various issues that will have to be faced and challenges overcome.
With that in mind, I thought it might be productive to do a rundown of considerations and plans of attack. Not only to organize them for myself, but for others who may be tackling this kit in the future. (more…)
Does It Fit – 1/32 Academy F-16 Edition
Resin aftermarket often seems to exist in some weird fog, where you can't find good, high-res photos or instructions online, much less actual thoughts from people who've used them. Even…
Does It Fit – 1/32 MiG-23 Edition
Last night, I was scouring the interwebs investigating my aftermarket options for a potential project, and I kept coming up against the same basic image, repeated over and over again,…
Tamiya’s New 1/32 F4U-1D Corsair – Quick Thoughts
UPDATE: Additional photos, some formatting fixes, one or two additional thoughts
Tamiya’s next 1/32 kit has broken cover, and I believe Marcus Nicholls deserves credit for sharing the first photos of the new F4U-1D Corsair chilling at the Tamiya booth at the Shizuoka Hobby Show.
While the -1D is hilariously being greeted with yawns of disappointment, I find it fascinating in a number of regards. And so, as I’ve done in the past, I wanted to share some quick thoughts and speculation about Tamiya’s latest.
One Precedent Holds
Tamiya has a now well-established history of releasing new 1/32 scale kits at the Shizuoka Hobby Show in odd-numbered years. In 2009 it was the Spitfire, followed by the Mustang in 2011, Corsair in 2013, and Mosquito in 2015.
Less than a week ago, I was wondering whether this precedent would hold. The new Shizuoka kits typically make themselves known a couple of weeks before the show, but this year April came and went with no news.
But it did hold. Kind of. We do have a new 1/32 kit debuting at Shizuoka in an odd-numbered year. We do not, however, have a new 1/32 subject. (more…)
Quick Review: 1/32 Special Hobby Hawker Tempest V
Around the time Alaric was leading his Visigoths toward Rome, Special Hobby began work on their 1/32 Hawker Tempest. Okay, maybe not that long ago. But this kit has been…
1/32 Trumpeter SBD-5 Dauntless – Part 1
When The Weathering Magazine’s aircraft-focused spinoff, Weathering Aircraft, reached out to me about doing a build for an upcoming publication, the request was pretty wide open. World War II, with a focus on painting a camoflage scheme.
After a few false starts, I decided to tackle a late-war SBD-5 Dauntless. The Douglas SBD Dauntless is one of the unsung workhorses of the war. Slated for replacement before the first bombs even fell at Pearl Harbor, it proved instrumental in turning the tide in the Pacific, and was ultimately responsible for sinking more Japanese ships than any other aircraft.
The SBD-3, which distinguished itself at Coral Sea, Midway and Guadalcanal, gets the lion’s share of the attention, but the -5 was the most produced variant, and did a lot of the dirty work later in the war. It also wore the tricolor camoflage that I personally find more interesting than the bluegray over light gray of the early war dive bombers.
It’s been nearly six years since I built my last Dauntless – Accurate Miniatures’ SBD-3 (my second build after coming back to the hobby). My memories of that kit have dimmed, but I clearly recall the frustration with the cockpit, which built up in a sort of top/bottom sandwich with the cockpit floor loading up and into the fuselage. This made test-fitting next to impossible and ultimately caused some issues getting everything installed, with some elements hanging down trying to occupy the same space as those loading up.
The wingroots, too, were a challenge on that kit. But it was my second kit back to the hobby, so just as likely my own incompetence.
Trumpeter’s side-load approach to the cockpit clears away the problems the AccuMini kit ran into, though the initial test-fit shows that the wingroots are still an issue.
More on that later. (more…)
Review: 1/32 Fly Hawker Hurricane Mk.IIc
Not too long ago, I had a thought. And that thought quickly turned into an effort.
Contributor-funded, contributor-selected kit reviews.
How’s it work? Simple. Contributors donate into the Review Fund and select the kits to be reviewed. Then I review them, with an exhaustive focus on how – and how well – they build.
These are full, naked builds. No aftermarket. No filler. No paint. Nothing for the plastic to hide behind.
Want to know more? Check out the Reviews page, FAQ and Manifesto!
The first kit selected? Fly’s 1/32 Hawker Hurricane Mk.IIc.
