There seems to be an awful lot of negativity swirling around the modeling community at the moment. And I certainly bear at least some of the responsibility. Kitty Hawk, it seems, has become a lightning rod for a fissure that has riven the hobby since I came back to it, and doubtless long before then.

So taking on a build review of the Su-17 was bound to cause a stir. And straight-up anti-recommending it, even moreso.

I probably could have predicted the way things would go. There are plenty of people in this hobby who can’t seem to understand that kit quality and user ability are two completely separate things. It’s not like scratchbuilding intuition and airbrush experience come in the box, bagged up nicely next to the decals.

Call out a kit for being bad? They attack your ability. That’s the way it goes. And I’ve written about it before.

Ultimately, it’s the same shit in a new dress. It all comes back to the same “modeler vs. assembler” broken record. God forbid we acknowledge, respect and even celebrate the spectrum of preferences and talents that are encompassed by this hobby. Instead by all means let’s reduce it to some meaningless binary bullshit. Let’s deflect any critique of kits, of paints, of decals, and throw it all back on the modeler (exception: bashing Trumpeter for accuracy issues).

Anyway…

As fun as wading through sludge can be sometimes, and as hilarious and pathetic as Facebook protest groups can be, I thought I’d swim upstream a bit and talk about the things I’m grateful for in this hobby. Or a few of them at least.

The Internet

When I was building models as a kid, my only connection to the larger modeling world was the rare trip to a hobby shop and the occasional purchase of an issue of FSM. I had no idea there were clubs, or contests, or anything of the kind. I didn’t know any other kids who modeled anything like seriously. Adults either.

When I came back to the hobby, I came back to a fully formed online community (and marketplace) and it was staggering to behold. For all the pettiness that goes on, the internet has transformed this hobby for the better in terms of information exchange and access to products.

Mr Paint

I went through a lot of different paint brands before landing in a happy place with Tamiya and Gunze Mr. Color. Then I tried Mr Paint (MRP). Holy shitsnacks. The spray performance is second-to-none, and coverage builds in a wonderfully linear fashion, so you can easily hover in near-transparency, or get solid coverage with even yellows and reds.

If you haven’t given it a shot, and you have the ventilation to spray lacquers, it’s worth checking out.

#BoleBox

Online retail has broken open a literal world of kits, decals, paint and aftermarket goodies. And while I still partake of Sprue Brothers, Hannants and the occasional eBay purchase, Matthew Bole’s Hobbyworld-USA has become my go-to, especially for many of the excellent products that are difficult to source from elsewhere. The aforementioned Mr Paint, Aizu masking tape, KASL resin goodies…it’s always a pleasure when a #bolebox shows up on my doorstep.

Fresh Blood

When I was a kid, the dominant players in my hobby world were Monogram, Revell, Testors, and I guess AMT/ERTL. Tamiya and Hasegawa existed, but the Michaels where I got most of my kits didn’t carry them. Accurate Miniatures came onto the scene toward the end of my childhood modeling “career”.

These days, a lot of those players are either gone or more-or-less irrelevant. Tamiya still makes substantial waves in the hobby, and Hasegawa can when they decide to drop new-tools. But even since I’ve returned to the hobby, the entry of new kit and aftermarket players is staggering to behold. HK Models, Great Wall Hobby, Meng, Takom, AMK, Rye Field, and Tanmodel, among others, are redefining our expectations of what a modern, non-Tamiya kit can deliver. Eduard has moved into resin accessories. DEF Model is offering some truly awesome wheels. KASL, still difficult to source over here, is churning out resin goodies that should make everyone else wake up and pay attention. Gaspatch out of Greece is doing metal turnbuckles and some rather nice WWI machine guns.

There’s a lot of awesome out there and – increasingly – less of a reason to settle for poorly-detailed, poorly-engineered trash if you don’t want to.

Maketar and DIY Paint Masks

We’ll always need decals for things like stencil data.  But for insignias and major markings, paint masks are the shit, especially as you go up in scale.

Unfortunately, paint masks can be a dicey proposition due to the bespoke nature of the category. Having to go through – and depend on – one person for masks presents a staggering bottleneck. My favorite supplier just went dark one day. Others go through this cycle of announcing they are no longer taking on custom work, but can’t seem to get a simple ecommerce site up to scale their effort. Then there’s Maketar. In addition to actually having a website where you can buy things, Maketar wisely focuses on a mix of both subject markings (say for Tamiya’s F4U-1 Corsair) and more general sets – things like national insignia. You can even specify the exact sizing you need. Crazy!

For even more bespoke needs, I’ve recently picked up a Silhouette Cameo. I’m still learning the damn thing and getting it dialed in, but it offers a compelling new tool in the toolbox.

Podcasts

Such a great way to pass time at the bench, and free, unlike audiobooks. My two current obsessions are Star Wars Oxygen and History Matters.

Kitmakers Pushing the Envelope

There’s a set out there that seems to take some kind of perverse pride in forking over premium kit money for decidedly not premium kits. If that’s your thing…

For me, though, it’s the ones pushing the envelope that get my attention (and money). Wingnut’s superlative surface detail and engineering. Tamiya’s 1/32 mic drops. HK Models swinging for the fences with a one-piece Mosquito wing. Tanmodel employing 3D laser scanning to develop kits so accurate that they’ve even proven the experts wrong. Great Wall Hobby and AMK for their one-piece missiles. Tanmodel, AMK and others for actively engaging with the community on social channels. Meng, for trying to bring  Bandai-style construction to WWII aircraft.

There’s a lot more I could roll through here…but amid all the hullabaloo over Kitty Hawk’s serial disappointments, it’s important to remember that there are far, far more manufacturers pushing this hobby forward in interesting and exciting ways.

 The People (most of them)

Modeling is by its nature a solitary hobby. I know its possible to build in the same room as someone else, but it’s still a solitary hobby. Which makes the community interesting. We’re all coming together to geek out over something we do in our garages and basements and utility rooms and sometimes, kitchen tables.

I’ve met some great people through this hobby – some literally down the road, and others across the world. The diversity of opinion and experience and taste, all gathered around a common hobby, is simply awesome. Mostly.

It’s no secret that I love to analyze Tamiya’s releases and release patterns and speculate what they may mean for the future. I’ve done it HERE, HERE, HERE, and most recently HERE.

There’s a lot to wade through in those links, but the TL;DR version is pretty simple. Going back to 2009 and the Spitfire IXc, Tamiya has established a pattern of releasing a new 1/32 subject in odd-numbered years (Spitfire in 2009, P-51 in 2011, Corsair in 2013, Mossie in 2015), and of debuting those new subjects at the Shizouka Hobby Show in early/mid May.

By all accounts, we should currently be losing our collective shit over Tamiya’s next 1/32 subject. But we’re not.

Why?

Because it now seems highly unlikely that Tamiya is going to drop a new 1/32 subject at the 2017 Shizouka Hobby Show.

If the Precedents Hold

All along, I’ve prefaced any and all forward-looking conjecture with the caveat “if the precedents hold”. Tamiya is a very fickle company, and even if a pattern is established, there’s no guarantee it will continue as such. Just look at 1/48 kits. After releasing the Il-2 in 2012, we got nothing for four years, until the one-two punch of the F-14 and Ki-61 last year.

In 2017, it seems, the precedents are not holding.

Sure, the past 1/32 releases have all broken cover at Shizouka, but they’ve also been known beforehand, usually in mid-April. Maybe it’s a pre-order product page on HLJ. Or a few sprue and test build shots leaked to Hyperscale or some other friendly outlet. Generally by the beginning of May, though, we’ve known what’s coming.

And so far this year, there’s been nothing. Zip. Zilch.

What Does This Mean?

Your guess is as good as mine.

If Tamiya’s breaking precedent, they surely have a reason for doing so. Or they don’t. Who knows?

But here are a few possibilities…

1 – We’re going to be surprised

Tamiya will be releasing a new 1/32 subject and have been keeping it under wraps better than usual. It will be revealed at Shizouka and we just don’t know it yet.

2 – The next 1/32 subject is taking longer than anticipated

Which could point to a more complicated kit. Perhaps the wildcard of a new-tool 1/32 F-14 might be the culprit?

3 – Resources are focused elsewhere

Tamiya dropped two new 1/48 kits on us last year, as well as a slew of armor, cars, and motorcycle things. It’s entirely possible they’re focusing on variant development and this will be a year where we see an F-14D and a Ki-100 or something.

4 – No scale fights

Ever noticed how Tamiya doesn’t release the same subject in different scales at the same time? The 1/48 Il-2 comes out, then a bit later, the 1/72 kit drops. Maybe we’re seeing something of the same here? Which again points to the possibility of a 1/32 F-14.

5 – None of the above

Or…something else. Again…who knows?

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.

Two Precedents Fall

To date, Tamiya’s “odd numbered years Shizuoka” precedent (really need a catchier name for this) has seen us graced with entirely new subjects. That is not the case this year. Tamiya has done the Corsair before, and the -1D is just a variant. So, in that sense, the precedent did fall.

Another precedent to fall is the one that we might call the Nemo principle. Tamiya has a tendency to “just keep swimming”. What’s past is past, and never revisited. Once Tamiya moved on to the Mustang, the Spitfire variants stopped. Once they moved on to the Corsair, no more Mustangs.

Going back to the Corsair after they’ve released the Mosquito is only the second instance I’m aware of where Tamiya has gone back to revisit a subject. The other being the Zero, which has some other peculiarities in both 1/32 and 1/48.

Don’t Get Your Hopes Up for that P-51B

Just because Tamiya has gone back to the Corsair, I wouldn’t suddenly look for them to get responsible with variant coverage. We likely have all the Spitfires and Mustangs we’re ever going to get from them. Same with the Corsair, most likely. As much as I would love to see an F4U-4, I just don’t think it’s in the cards.

*The F4U-4 is covered in the booklet Tamiya includes with their Corsair kits. Which makes it at least possible. But I still wouldn’t put any money on it.

Modelers are Whining Children

Jesus. There’s so much bitching out there about how Tamiya won’t release this variant or that variant of their subjects. The F-16D, P-51B/C, Korea-era F-61, Spitfire Vc, Spitfire XIV, etc. It is a tendency of theirs to leave those hopes high and dry. And along comes the F4U-1D, which is literally the first sign of going back to pick up additional variants, and it’s whining over how disappointing this is, either because modelers wanted something new, or wanted a variant of a different subject, or because the -1D is boring…

Think the -1D is boring? You’re boring.

Am I a bit miffed that I’m not currently drooling over a new 1/32 Tamiya P-47? Sure! But I’m still jazzed as hell for the -1D. It deserves to join the -1 Birdcage and -1A and round out the trinity, as it does in 1/48 and 1/72. It completes the Corsair’s WWII narrative nicely, and with the overall gloss sea blue, big white markings and underwing HVARs, has a nicely differentiated look from the earlier variants.

The funny thing is…everyone basically assumed the -1D would be in the cards. If it had come along in-line with the other Corsairs, no one would have batted an eye. But because of the expectations that come with the precedents Tamiya has (knowingly or unknowingly) established, it comes along now, and people are quick to dismiss it as lazy.

The F4U-1D is an Engineering Layup

The differences between the F4U-1A and -1D are quite minor, and from a modeling perspective, consist of the following: HVAR rocket tabs on the wings, a blown single-piece canopy that omitted the two longitudinal frames of the -1A, two belly pylons vs. the single found on the -1A, and…that’s about it. There was a new variant of the Pratt & Whitney R-2800, but it’s the same one fitted to late -1As and I don’t believe (and am too lazy to check) there are substantial visible differences.

Basically, a new canopy, a new sprue for the additional parts, and that’s it. The -1A already has provisions for the rocket tabs molded into the wings for crying out loud.

NOTE: Pics show that there is a bit more to it than that. It looks like we’re getting a new canopy, new flaps (with the kick step in them), a new prop, and new outer wings, as well as the HVARS, drop tanks and so on. While the -1A has filled holes for the rocket tabs, it looks like the -1D has additional detailing for the tab reinforcement plates. I’m not anywhere close to my -1A kit at the moment though, so I can’t immediately confirm.

Likely a Delayed Release

I would bet good money that this kit was engineered at the same time as the F4U-1A. It’s possible that molds for the additional parts weren’t cut until recently, but the rest of the work was almost certainly done in-line.

So why is it only being released now, in 2017? Why wasn’t it released in 2014?

I think it comes down to timing. The Birdcage was released in the summer of 2013. The -1A didn’t show up until over a year later, in September 2014. And the Mosquito landed in summer 2015. Shoving the -1D between the -1A and Mosquito wouldn’t have made sense – there were only five months between the Corsair hitting retailers and the Mossie being announced.

So the question becomes…why did it take so long for the -1A to drop? Were there delays? Maybe. But I’d guess that all three Corsairs were designed at the same time given the massive commonality of parts. Another possibility – lessons were learned from the Spitfire, so far the only other Tamiya 1/32 kit to get three variant releases. The Mk.VIII and Mk.XVI were released within about six months of each other, and if the XVI didn’t sell as well, I could see conclusions being drawn from that.

Still, there was ample time to have introduced the -1D sometime in 2016, and it wasn’t.

Is the -1D a Holding Action?

Why are we seeing the -1D now? Precedent pointed to a wholly new 1/32 subject. And maybe therein lies the answer. This is complete speculation, but what if that new subject isn’t quite ready? What if the -1D is a gap filler? It wouldn’t surprise me.

A Second Mossie (Still) Seems Unlikely

I’m still going to say that we likely will not see a second Mossie variant. Despite all the clamoring beforehand, I just haven’t seen that many built. It’s a fraction of the Spitfires, Mustangs and Corsairs. I don’t know that there’s huge clamoring for more.

But the release of the -1D also makes the prospect of a second Mossie less unlikely that it was yesterday. Who knows?

What Comes Next?

At this point, I think the action will move to 1/48 for the rest of 2017. Odds are good that we will see a second F-14 variant (there are provisions in the F-14A for both F-14B and F-14D variants, so who knows which will drop), probably in September. We may also see a 1/48 Ki-100 following on from last year’s Ki-61.

In 1/32 land, I’d guess we’ll see a new subject next year. But I’m less confident in that given the way precedent has kind of blown up.

What could that new subject be? I’m still standing behind my predictions of a P-47, Me 262, or a wildcard F-14. The latter would potentially explain a delay and the release of the Corsair as a holding action.

Another wildcard I’ve mentioned before is the Ki-61, given the 1/48 tooling and the access to a recently restored sample that that kit was based upon. But I’m not at all confident that the Tony would bring the kind of volume Tamiya seems to go after in its subject-picking for 1/32.

Time to wait and see!

If it seems like I’ve been somewhat quiet of late, well, I have been. In part thanks to a combination of work, travel, work travel, and being glued to the twists and turns in the Trump-Russia scandal. But also in part to behind the scenes work on a project for an upcoming issue of Weathering Aircraft magazine.

The theme of desert weathering happened to line up nicely with the release of the final novel in the Star Wars: Aftermath trilogy. While not a particularly good book, it’s notion of a protracted Battle of Jakku gave me the idea of Rebel fighters forward-deployed planetside to cover ground forces. And Bandai’s A-Wing seemed like a fun subject to mess around with.

And, well, here it is:

The mental narrative I worked from is that a forward-deployed A-Wing squadron found it necessary to paint over the deeper red markings with something more suited to desert operations, inspired by the photo recon Spitfires the RAF flew in North Africa. At some point, a hit from a TIE fighter took out the starboard engine, necessitating a cobbled-together field replacement. And of course, grinding service in a hostile desert environment means sand, dust, and all that good, delicious weathering.

The blow-by-blow will have to wait until the article drops, but I will say two things.

First, I used plenty of enamel weathering products on the A-Wing and it did not explode.

Second, there are some tricks to building these Bandai kits that I frustratingly discovered too late in the game. While overall the A-Wing is an excellent kit, the press-fit nature of the assembly is problematic. It makes it very difficult to test fit. In several areas, like the central fuselage, the parts went in and there was just no going back. Toward the end, I started cutting off various lugs and found that this made test-fitting and removability of parts significantly easier. And the fit is still damn good. For example – the engine assemblies and rear bulkhead fit snug, but can be teased off with a small amount of wiggling. Next time I tackle a Bandai kit, I’ll be better prepared for sure.

For years, I’ve lamented that we’re pretty much stuck with 1/35 scale when it comes to armor. No, not because of cross-display issues with 1/32 or anything like that. Rather, because 1/35 is kinda small. Even modern MBTs like the Abrams lack a strong sense of presence. In many ways, 1/35 is kinda like 1/48 in the aircraft world (and 1/48 armor is like 1/72 aircraft and so on).

So with 1/16 scale being all over the place lately, thanks to Trumpeter’s new M1A1 and Tamiya’s incoming M1A2 Abrams, you’d think I’d be rather excited. Armor with presence, and all that.

But I’m not.

1/16 can go screw itself.

Let’s explore why.

1 – It’s Fucking Huge

This is Panda’s 1/16 Pz.Kpfw 38t. It’s a marginal kit, but hey, it’s big. About the size of a shoe box. Here it is next to a 1/35 Sherman.

If 1/16 meant a ready availability of tank kits about this size, I’d be excited.

Thing is, though, the 38t is a tiny tank. Like the Renault FT, it’s miniscule in 1/35. Blowing it up by 100+% makes it big, but not too big.

The same cannot be said for most other tanks. When you move into Tigers and T-72s and M1s, you quickly progress into the realm of the ludicrous. Just consider this.

That’s Trumpeter’s new 1/16 M1A1. That MiG-29 next to it? That’s not 1/48. That’s 1/32. Just to give you a sense of how massive the Abrams is in 1/16. If you run the numbers, it’s over 24″ long. That’s longer than a 1/32 F-15.

Here’s Tamiya’s. Jesus. The turret is bigger than the 1/35 kit.

If we want to make an aircraft analogy, 1/16 is like jumping from 1/48 straight to 1/24.

2 – It exceeds the 100% step

Look at the way aircraft scales work. 1/72 scale is exactly twice the size of 1/144, or 100% larger. But once you get past that, 1/48 is 50% larger than 1/72. And 1/32 is 50% larger than 1/48. And 1/24 is 33% larger than 1/32 (and 100% larger than 1/48).

That’s a nice progression of scales and sizes.

1/16 is 119% larger than 1/35. Again, it’s the equivalent of jumping from 1/48 to 1/24. It can work nicely with something like the 38t, just as it would work nicely with a Sopwith Camel. But with an F-14?

There should be an interim scale – say 1/24 – that would act like an armor equivalent of aircraft’s 1/32.

In 1/24, an M1A1 Abrams would be around 16″ long – about the same length as a 1/32 Skyraider.

3 – 1/16 kits are shitballs expensive

The cheapest price I’ve seen for Trumpy’s new Abrams is around $185, and most places are listing it well over $200. Their Jagdtiger is going for $300 on Sprue Brothers.

With prices like that, it’s going to be a challenge, I think, to build a viable, sustainable scale over time. I don’t see it becoming an alternative with a broad ecosystem of kits in the vein of 1/48 armor, or 1/32 aircraft.

Without that ecosystem, it’s going to be a challenge to gain adoption, and without adoption, it’s going to be a challenge to create that ecosystem.

4 – Aftermarket wasteland

Have you ever heard of the Tiger I? It’s a somewhat obscure tank from a lesser combatant in World War II.

A quick search on Sprue Brothers for “1/35 Tiger” pulls up 268 results, and about 260 of those are Tiger or King Tiger-related. Kits, dry transfers, tracks, grilles, barrels, decals, you name it.

It’s an aftermarket wonderland.

But when I searched for “1/16 Tiger”, I only got 39 results, and most of them were not 1/16 Tiger related. Of those that were, there were some Archer dry transfers, and some shitty Peddinghaus decals. No barrels, no grilles, no tracks, no figures.

If the fucking Tiger can’t pull any aftermarket tail, what do you think is going to befall every other tank that comes out in 1/16?

5 – Back to this interim scale thing

Seriously. The armor world doesn’t need 1/16 – it needs a scale between 1/16 and 1/35.

It’s been tried. I know that Tasca came out with a 1/24 Panzer II, and it bombed because no shit. I mean…a Panzer II? Fucking really? That’d be like Marvel trying to kick off their cinematic universe with Squirrel Girl. Except not, because Squirrel Girl is awesome. But just imagine where we might be if instead of a Panzeryawnwagen II, Tasca had dropped a 1/24 Sherman or four on us.

6 – It reeks of inertia

Kitmakers rarely seem to think outside the box. I mean, we live in a world where it’s possible to buy 3D printed workable tracks…that come that way, with no need to endure the tedium of building them up link by link. And just below that we have some really great workable tracksets, be they metal or resin or injection plastic. But how many kits still come with glue-together indy links or link-and-length or rubber bands? How many wheeled subjects still torture us with bullshit vinyl tires?

To quote one of my favorite books, “show some fucking adaptability”.

Just because Trumpeter made a 1/16 T-34 a long time ago is no reason to keep pushing this bullshit scale. The market for it is tiny.

Most of the opinions I’ve seen regarding the wave of giant Abrams kits amounts to “huh, neat, too big”. I’ve seen more interest in Tamiya’s announcement of a 1/48 M1A2.

I’m convinced there’s a 1/24 scale lane that’s wide open, if only a manufacturer or two would have the guts to take it.

And besides, it’d set up cross-display possibilities with the scale auto world, making dioramas like this possible:

It’s weird how ideas can snowball. That’s exactly what happened when Jimmy D proposed an informal F-4 buddy build over in SMCG. What started as “huh” quickly gathered steam, and suddenly the start date for this informal affair was bumped up to July 4th.

I was just coming off Bandai’s A-Wing and a rather epic bench cleaning and reorganization, and uncommitted to any particular project.

So I decided “fuck it, I’m game”.

My kit of choice? Academy’s 1/48 F-4C Phantom II. With some goodies.

Markings and Aftermarket

Aftermarket’s always a balancing act – how much detail do you want to bring, versus the risk of getting bogged down in the build and losing interest?

I’ve seen plenty of horror stories regarding Aires’ cockpit for the F-4C, and Eduard could only be assed to do a fancy Brassin cockpit for the F-4J, so I’m stuck with the kit cockpit. But I’ll be adding Quickboost ejection seats, Airscale gauge decals, Eduard exhausts and wheels, and DEF Model FOD covers. I haven’t decided what I want to do about armament yet, but I’m considering going pretty clean, and keeping it to maybe as little as just two Sidewinders.

Marking-wise, I waffled a bit. There are some very cool F-4Cs and F-4Ds that found their way into the Texas ANG. Some in wraparound SEA camo, others in ADC gray, and still others in a weird gray scheme that I still want to tackle one day.

But the one I settled on – #64-829 – is the F-4C once flown by Robin Olds in Vietnam, represented much later in life, serving in the Texas ANG and wearing the Euro I camoflage scheme that replaced SEA Brown with Euro I Gray.

This is not it – but same squadron and same time period. Decent shots of 829 in Euro I are very hard to come across.

This is it. Note that it’s retained the kill markings.

It should be a fun one to have a go at.

The Academy Curse

I have a silly admission. Since coming back to the hobby, I seem to be under some kind of Academy curse. By which I mean I haven’t been able to finish a single one of their kits.

Why? Well, there was the P-38F that was trashed by our late yellow lab while he was surfing for table scraps. But for the most part, it’s come down to reaching the end of my motivation. Or, in other words, running out of fucks. I seem to start a build with a certain reserve of fucks, and if I can get to paint, I’m generally on track to finish the damn thing. If not…it ends up like the big F-16D, or the Academy F-4B (I never even got the fuselage closed). Or the big F/A-18C. That one got waylaid by my frustration with the vent detail ahead of the seamless intakes. By the time I was ready to come back to it, I was deep in Tamiya’s F-14 and my low-viz cravings were temporarily sated.

Can I beat the curse this time out? Fingers crossed!

Let’s get this party started

Now – I don’t intend to present this as a step-by-step or anything so grand. I have been thinking about how I might upend the presentation of such a SBS on this blog, but with this build, my goal is momentum. Keep it moving, get it into paint. I stalled out on the F-4B a while ago, and ultimately got distracted by other kits before I finished the cockpit. I don’t want to fall prey to that here – and with Tamiya’s big F-4E waiting for a green light, let’s be honest, it’s a distinct possibility.

File under “oh hell yes”

Rather than being cliched and starting with the cockpit, I decided to start with removing all the resin pour blocks and tackling some initial construction. The intakes went together – even though they won’t be visible I figure they’re a good place to stash some weight if I need. The main gear bays, too, were knocked out right away.

Academy’s designed these at that maddening 80% level. The way it works is, you get to bring together five different pieces – the four walls and a crossmember, with all of like two actual location aids. These then fit into the vaguest of depressions in the inside of the lower wing. Better location aids, or more defined insets in the wing itself, would have made this a very simple step. But alas.

Oh, and you also have to install the main gear struts at this stage. This is annoying for all the reasons you’d imagine, but the way they trap in place, you do get the benefit of basically perfect alignment.

From there it was on to a test-fit of the fuselage, and some potential problems. The one-piece upper is awesome, but seemed to kind of cave in a bit toward the wingroot, making alignment over the locating tabs a challenge, and leaving a sizable gap in the starboard wingroot. Great…

Next up…primer!

The engines got treated to a funky green color, and then some weathering, both of which will be completely invisible to anyone save Douchey McPenLight.

I tried to get cute with the nozzles, but they came out grainy as shit. Not acceptable. And strange considering I was using MRP metallics. I think it was the mixing of metallics with actual colors. That and I noticed that Super Fine Silver seems to not enjoy mixing with other MRP metallic shades.

So they were repainted with Gunze GX2 (the best gloss black out there), and then hit with various Alclads. It’s the only brand where I have a deep bench of “dark” metallics. And they came out better this time.

The engine trunks were installed into the fuselage – and Eduard does a good job here playing nice with the kit to give us truly drop-fit exhausts. The burner cans? I’ll place them at the tail end of the build.

This. Is. Spartan!

Moving on to the cockpit, this is some bullshit. Like, “this is 1/48 and you can’t give us sidewalls?” levels of bullshit. The side consoles and instrument panels and control sticks are slightly less disappointing, but suffer a surfeit of shallow surface detail that wouldn’t be out of place on 70s-era Monogram.

Rather than endure the tedium of masking the individual gauges and side console panels, I painted everything Dark Gull Gray FS 36231, then picked out the black details with a Faber Castell artist pen. This is a great tool in that it allows you to be really precise with picking out black details. But I’ve found the ink can act strangely in the presence of washes and decal setting solutions, so it was hit first with a coat of Tamiya X-22 gloss.

Next, to give definition between the panels, I put down and then removed Ammo Sky Gray Panel Line Wash. It’s not an exact match for Dark Gull Gray, but inside a cockpit, it’s close enough.

Next came the seats. I despise the colored PE belts Eduard uses, so I’m going with Quickboost’s take on the Martin-Bakers. These are basically the same as the Aires seats, but with the belts molded in place. Major painting of the cushions, headrest and so on were all done freehand with Mr. Paint through my Gunze PS-770.

For the instrument panels, I used Airscale gauge decals. These damn things are wonderful, but I’m pretty sure the Academy gauges are underscale, so I got to endure the tedium of punching out individual gauge decals, probably 25% smaller than their actual size.

To bring out the details in the side consoles, the relief is too shallow for me to use my preferred method of paint-on-a-toothpick. Instead, I basically did a rubbinig of the side consoles with a white Prismacolor pencil. Perfect? Fuck no. Good enough for the relatively hard-to-see interior of a Phantom? Yes!

Pull ring bullshit

One thing I despise about the Quickboost seats – and many other seats besides – is the bullshit fragile ejection pull rings. These had flash inside the rings, and cleaning said flash out soon led to this:

Come on.

Faced with scratching pull rings, I tried a notion of twisted thread…and as you can see above, it looks pretty awesome when it’s straight. But when you loop it around, not so much. So I’m going in a different direction that I think might pan out. Involving PE and Bondic. Stay tuned.

Okay, so back to the cockpit proper. The black from the artist pen is really black, and I wanted to knock down the contrast a bit, so oversprayed a thin coat of MRP Dark Gull Gray. Nothing fancy. And after the IP decals were placed, everything got a quick flat coat before Bondic was used to gloss up the gauges.

Clickity!

While various cockpit bits were coming together, I pushed ahead on construction. The outer wings fit decently, but I feel like this could be better done. There’s enough slop that getting the proper dihedral is…interesting.

But it was the fuselage and all the rear heat shielding shit that had me worried.

Fortunately the fuselage proved a nothingburger. Fears unfounded. A bit of pressure applied from above spread it nicely, and a touch-n-flow loaded with MEK locked everything in place. Academy plastic takes really, really well to the stuff, by the way.

The rear heat shielding took a bit more care. You have this weird sort of tab-and-groove arrangement that should align all the edges, but doesn’t quite. Fortunately, MEK and Academy plastic are besties, and working in small sections, it’s possible to use hand pressure to get it all lined up properly.

The result? Getting the bulk of the airframe together far faster than I’d anticipated. If only the cockpit were as much a pleasure as the rest of the kit!

Weak chin

Overall, Academy’s put together a fine kit, but again, 80% effort. The glory of the one-piece upper fuselage is marred by the silly decision to split the lower fuselage in two. And that silliness is compounded by some engineering WTFery. Let’s explore.

The annoyances start with (1) the design of the gear bay and cockpit. As with the main bays, the nose bay walls don’t have the best location aids. And neither does the inside of the lower fuselage where it’s supposed to sit. Vague indentations must be all the rage in Korea.

The gear bay also installs into the bottom of the cockpit – and this is apparently where the Aires set runs into significant problems. The instructions would have you install the combined assemblies into the bottom part first, but I decided to put my focus on making sure the cockpit was in the right place, so I glued the aft bulkhead in place first.

Moving on, the point where the lower fuselages come together (2) is a fucking BUTT JOIN. There is absolutely nothing to make sure they align vertically. To address this, I installed some square styrene rod (3) to act as a brace.

When I went to weld the lower forward fuselage in place, I opted to put my focus into getting the panel lines aligned and making sure the nose would fit properly. With some cajoling and light pressure, this is pretty easily done. But it leaves a gap at the back, where the lower fuselages meet.

Sigh.

To give the parts more purchase and make life easier down the line, I cut up some thin styrene sheet and shoved the pieces into the gap to act as shims. These were then hit with welder. There will still be some cleanup, but infinitely preferable to playing the filler game over the areas.

Mothersuckers

With the fuselage together, the build moved to the intakes.

I have nothing pleasant whatsoever to say about these.

This is more of that 80% effort thing I keep coming back to. Let’s explore.

Above, you can see where the intakes are supposed to go. As with the lower fuselage joins, the intake join is another fucking butt join (1). Would it have been so difficult to put some kind of lip here to help manage depth?The issues are further compounded by (2) this silly lower intake join. And don’t even get me started on the intake trunks.

After a lot of sanding of that lower join area, the intakes do fit. Mostly. But it’s a sloppy fit that calls for some very precise cleanup that threatens a lot of very fine detail.

If I’d known earlier on that the fit would be this tedious, I’d have gone ahead and used a set of XMM seamless intakes, which fit better and with less drama than the kit parts.

On the Nose

Next up, the radome. The fit here is pretty good – but not perfect. Sitting on the lower prongs that help locate it, the nose fits nicely around most of the circumference, with the exception of the very bottom (where the prongs are), where it sits just a hair proud of the fuselage. Sanding sticks make short work of that issue, though.

The join of the nose to the fuselage is a bit ragged, and has me wishing that Tanmodel would go ahead and drop their Su-33. The idea of taking the nose join off the radome/fuselage line and putting it somewhere else for ease of cleanup is, frankly, inspired. And would have been welcome here.

The Verdict So Far

And with that, it’s time to bring Part 1 of this WIP to a close. The build is all over by the crying – and by crying I mean attending to seams and other cleanup matters before moving on to the shit that I don’t want to get damaged by said cleanup – the forward air scoops, canopy, flaps and so on.

So what do I make of the Academy F-4C so far?

Honestly, it’s a mixed bag. The one-piece upper fuselage is great, as are the aft elements, including the heat shielding, tail, stabilators and so on. Detail overall is strong – on the exterior.

But it feels very much like Academy was heading down the field toward a truly great kit, and fumbled the ball. The gear bays are needlessly tedious. The cockpit is sorely lacking when it comes to detail. And that lower fuselage join and the much more visible intakes are seriously dinged by poor engineering choices.

There are plenty of modelers out there who will start a project and, no matter how shitty or dispiriting it proves to be, will see it through to the bitter end.

I have a healthy respect for those who do…but it’s not something I particularly excel at. For me, modeling is a hobby. And while I like challenges, there comes a point where the enjoyment slips away and the bench sessions become drudgery.

And for some reason, Academy kits always seem to drag me into that drudgery.

I’d hoped that the F-4C Phantom would be a way to break the curse, but alas, here I am, teetering at the edge.

Why? Not because of anything big. Not because the kit has “defeated” me. But rather, because compounding annoyances have worn me down, and because of swirlings in the larger market.

Let’s go through those annoyances first…

The Cockpit is Bullshit

My first annoyance with the Academy F-4C was the laughably spartan cockpit. After reading the horror stories of the Aires cockpit set for this kit,  I stayed well away, but maybe I should have taken the plunge, or at the very least used the resin to create a hybrid cockpit of sorts. I mean…the kit pit has no sidewall detail. At all.

Aside from the absent sidewall detail, the side consoles and IPs are no great shakes, either.

Seriously – the old Hasegawa and even Revellogram F-4s put it to shame.

Strike one.

The Surface Texture

The entire surface of the Academy F-4 is covered in a slightly gritty texture that has to be sanded away. And I thought I had, but well into the painting process, it keeps popping up in places. UGH. 

Say what you will about the old Hasegawa kits, their polished plastic eliminates this as an issue.

There are also various mold lines along the single upper fuselage piece, kind of negating some of the point of having it in the first place.

Strike two.

The Separate Heat Shield is Bad Engineering

The titanium heat shield is one of the F-4’s most defining visual elements, and a veritable garden of delight for worn metal effects.

But look at where it meets up with the aft fuselage. It’s very precise, with lots of fine fastener detail.

Academy, following Tamiya’s stupid lead on this, makes the heat shield a separate, single piece. Well, multiple pieces if you count the upper portions around the tail.

Why is this annoying? Because the join is dicey and this is NOT an area where you want to be doing extensive cleanup.

When engineering a kit, it’s generally a good idea to try to put the joins in places where they aren’t going to cause any more headaches than they have to. This is why most cylindrical fuselages join side-by-side, rather than top-to-bottom. Easier to deal with a seam across the section of the top not taken up by the cockpit or the tail, than to deal with a seam down the entire side of the fuselage.

The same logic *should* apply to the heat shield. Both Hasegawa and Zoukei-Mura mold the fucker as part of the fuselage sides, and it joins at the bottom, where any cleanup work can be conveniently hidden by the arrestor hook.

Strike three.

The Intakes are Bad and Should Feel Bad

Most intakes on jet kits suck. Especially on American aircraft, because some dinglelord decided “hey, let’s paint those trunks white!”. Fuck that guy.

There are seamless intakes available to address this, but generally, they’re a pain to install vs. the kit parts. And since this F-4C was going to be rocking FOD covers, I figured I’d use the kit intake parts. What a fucking travesty.

The fit of these was bad. Leaving a step with the lower fuselage and necessitating cleanup on the upper fuselage sides.

It’s generally a bad thing when your kit intakes fit worse than aftermarket options.

Strike four.

The Main Gear Bays – Also Bullshit

Anybody who’s tackled an Academy F-4 knows that the main gear bays are a box of annoyance. Not only for the lack of location aids that could have easily been incorporated, but for the fact that they make you install the main struts before pretty much anything else. While I appreciate that this locks the struts in at a perfect angle, there are less bullshit ways of going about it.

Strike five.

No Navigation Lights

Many of the more visually interesting F-4Cs and Ds can be found in Air National Guard service in the late 70s through the 80s. And every single one of them has nav light strips on the nose, fuselage and tail.

These are not present on the Academy kit.

I eventually had to add them to my F-4, but it was a…fraught process.

Strike six.

No One-Piece Canopy

Zoukei-Mura and various Hasegawa F-4 kits provide not just the multi-piece canopy, but a handy single-piece option if you’re inclined to display your F-4 all closed up.

Now, it’s hard to be too rough on Academy here. A second, single-piece canopy is a rarity in the modeling world.

BUT when both of your main competitors are doing it, and you decide to put next to zero effort into the cockpit…

Strike seven.

None of these are deal breakers. Not really. But they’ve been chewing away at my thoughts and my patience throughout this build.

Honestly, I’d probably keep on pushing through, if not for things outside the kit’s control. Such as…

My Own Fucking Tastes

We all have our own tastes. And for me, growing up in the 80s and following Desert Storm on CNN and through trading cards, my taste in Phantoms has always run to the long noses – particularly the F-4G Wild Weasel.

Down from the F-4G, my preferences fall toward other long-noses such as the F-4E, German F-4F, and even the recces like the RF-4C.

I’ve also got a thing for the slatted wings and low-viz schemes, which puts the F-4S in play.

But generally, the shorties don’t excite me as much.

And I’ll admit, I’m fucking pissed that Academy seems to have just done the unslatted, short-nosed Phantoms and called it a day.

The same has been true of Zoukei-Mura with the F-4J. But with the release of the F-4S, they’ve opened up a window of hope.

There is Another…

Perhaps the biggest sapper for me, however, was the reveal of Zoukei-Mura’s forthcoming F-4C.

I’m already a fan of several of the engineering approaches ZM takes with their F-4J and S – including actually doing the cockpit justice, molding the heat shield as part of the fuselage, and having a more sane intake design. But if you look closely at the test build photo, you’ll see position lights. These are optional, so those looking to build a Vietnam-era C can still go to town, but they’re also available for those looking to build a late 70s/80s Phantom.

So, What’s My Plan Now?

For now, I’m going to set the Academy F-4C aside. I’m not about to chuck it yet. Instead, I’m planning to tackle a Zoukei F-4S and see what I make of it. If I enjoy it, well, I’m going to keep the decals planned for the Academy ready to go for the ZM F-4C.

And so for now, I guess, the Academy curse holds.

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, probably associated with the item’s presence in a few dozen online storefronts. And…that’s it.

No deeper looks. No in-depth reviews. No advisories on what needs to be cut or filed away.

A few times, I was lucky enough to find a mention of a certain item in a forum thread. But the Photobucketpocalypse has basically crippled the utility of forums as project archives. Unless you like looking at dozens of images of an extortion message cuted up by a kitten.

Go fuck yourself, Photobucket

It’s amazing that, in 2017, it’s basically impossible to find detailed photos or a good look at the instructions, even, for most resin aftermarket items. Much less photos and confirmation of whether or not a thing fits.

NOTE 1: If you’re a resin manufacturer who is not Eduard (or a vanishingly few others like KASL and Zactomodels), do everyone a favor and pull your head out of your ass. Take high-res, detailed photos of your wares (imagine that!). Post instructions online. Maybe even include an idea of what work will need to be done to make a thing fit.

NOTE 2: If you’re one of those who likes to bray about modelers vs assemblers and basic modeling skills and who cares you’ll make it fit anyway, go fuck yourself. I personally would like to know what I’m in for before dropping $45 for an engine set. It all goes into my cost/effort/benefit analysis. And I know I’m not alone in that.

NOTE 3: If you are Eduard, for the love of god please stop shipping your really nice resin seats with those shit-ass color PE belts. Give us unpainted, malleable ones or take a note from the Aires/Quickboost division and sell an option with belts molded in.

The more you know

Anyway, as something of a public service and to hopefully help spare others from fruitless searching, I thought I’d start posting my experiences with various resin contrivances, detailing how they fit and whether I think they were worth the effort. So hopefully you can make a more informed decision where to spend your hobby dollars. Or not.

Up today – accessories for Trumpeter’s 1/32 MiG-23 Flogger series.

AIRES #2133 – MiG-23 Flogger Wheel Bay

Trumpeter’s big MiG-23 kits have a lot going for them. But their gear bays leave a lot to be desired. In addition to being rather spartan, they require assembly. The HORROR, I know. But if you could just drop in a one-piece replacement, that’s a step up in my book.

Aires’ gear bays are far, far more detailed than the kit pieces. And while my comparison to the actual gear bays shows some discrepancies in wiring, I wouldn’t really be surprised if that varied from Flogger to Flogger as they were wrenched on during their lifetimes.

To fit, the main think  you have to do is remove this little bit of plastic around the kit’s bay openings.

After those areas are cleared away (I found the back of a #11 blade the cleanest way to do this) and a very little bit of sanding along the bottom of the fuselage where the bay sits, the fit was almost drop-in. The bays are just ever so slightly short. Not enough to bother me much, but to each their own.

You will also have to remove the pour block on top, and a few square things on the wing part that drops down over the fuselage there. This is pretty easy and since they won’t be seen, doesn’t have to be pretty.

When you do commit to glue, I recommending doing so with the upper fuselage taped firmly in place. This will help with making sure things are aligned, since the mounting post for the main gear supports is past the resin in the upper fuselage/wing glove assembly.

Ultimately, the slight gaps on the sides got on my nerves, so they got filled with putty.

As for the nosebay? It’s a complete drop-fit.

Detail – Absolutely exquisite

Does it Fit? – Yes

Worth it? – Yes

AIRES #2134 – MiG-23ML Cockpit Set

As with a number of 1/32 Trumpeter offerings, the kit’s cockpit isn’t bad, per se. It’s just not that great. The instrument panel is done, annoyingly, as a clear part. This is by no means a dealbreaker, and with careful masking of the gauge faces these types of panels can look stellar. But the Trumpeter one has no gauge surrounds, and the rest of the cockpit is just so-so. Whereas the Aires cockpit is just gorgeous.

The question though – does it fit?

The kit helpfully has some location ridges, but Aires isn’t exactly known for being accommodating.

But a quick test-fit revealed that things weren’t so far off the mark.

The main sticking point is in the aft bulkhead’s “shoulders”, right around where it clears the cockpit sills. Fit was also a bit snug on the sides. Between scraping with a #10 blade and a microchisel, I managed to knock these areas down sufficiently.

Another thing that has to go is the interior portions of the cockpit sills. Fortunately, you don’t need to sand anything down to paper-thin translucency.

With everything cut and abraded, the fit was snug, but solid. A few comments told me to keep sanding, but with the way the sidewalls curve, I have a feeling that would have just caused more of a gap in the sills.

Those gaps in the sills? They don’t matter, because the MiG-23 has weatherstripping running around the entire cockpit, and that line is exactly where it’ll need to go.

Installation

Installing the cockpit was pretty straightforward. The starboard sidewall kind of plugs into the main cockpit tub so there’s no alignment fuckery on that side. The port sidewall is more free-spirited. So, using epoxy, I got installed the starboard sidewall (with the cockpit tub attached), then added the port side, slammed everything shut, and clamped it for the night to cure.

After that I was able to crack it back open and remove the cockpit tub for painting.

Painting is kinda outside the scope here, so…here’s how it came out.

NOTE: There are other elements that install into the canopy that are well-detailed and fit nicely. But let’s face it, it’s always how the *main* cockpit fits that drives concerns with resin. 

Detail – Absolutely exquisite

Does it Fit? – Mostly yes. You will have to do some scraping, and remove a portion of the cockpit sills (as well as open up space for the instrument panel/coaming), but at best a moderate amount. There is no sanding down to micron thickness or cutting away vast, important sections of the kit. 

Worth it? – Yes

HAD Models #132002 KM-1 Ejection Seat

Why in the seven hells would I buy a resin seat when one already came with the Aires set?

Because laziness. The Aires seat is exquisite. One of the prettiest ejection seats I’ve seen. But the PE belts are a nightmare. In 1/32, I love me some fabric belts for older aircraft. But when it comes to ejection seats, I much prefer my harness detail molded on. The HAD seat was insurance in case the Aires didn’t work out. Worst case, I thought, it’d give me justification to buy a MiG-21 or something.

As it turns out, the PE belts on the Aires seat soon had me pondering things like how “movie” probably sounded as stupid to people 100 years ago as “selfie” does to us today. Before I chucked my sanity into the abyss, I decided to go with the HAD seat instead.

So creamy…

The seat isn’t as slick as the Aires, but it’s still pretty nice. The headrest and footbox things are a bit clunky to install, but not in any way that is noticeable once it’s painted.

The cream-colored resin makes it really tough to get a sense of the seat, so here’s a shot if it after painting and weathering. The stencils are pulled from a Linden Hill decal sheet.

Detail – A solid 8, but not crisp enough to earn a 10 in my book. 

Does it Fit? – Yep

Worth it? – This is up to you. I feel that life is too short to go mad threading PE belts for a modern ejection seat. Your mileage may vary. 

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 harder is finding a straight answer to the question central to many a resin purchase:

Does it fit?

This DIF series is my attempt to chip away at that fog, to the extent that I can. First up, I covered some goodies for Trumpeter’s 1/32 MiG-23s. This time out, let’s look at Academy’s 1/32 F-16s. Particularly the Sufa.

The Academy Sufa

For some reason, Israeli jets do nothing for me. It’s convenient, then, that the F-16I Sufa is basically the same aircraft as the F-16D Block 52+. This opens up some interesting possibilities for two-seater fun, including Polish and Hellenic Air Force schemes.

A few years ago, I had a solid go at Academy’s big Viper before just running out of steam. That run-out remains probably my biggest regret in modeling after buying Kitty Hawk kits thinking “this time it’ll be better”.

In the time since, two of my biggest gripes – the fit of the intake exterior and of the exhaust nozzle – have been addressed by aftermarket in the form of a one-piece NSI intake from Zactomodels, and a Pratt & Whitney exhaust courtesy of KASL.

But the resin that I did use on that first pass at the tandem F-16 gave me some

WOLFPACK #32030 1/32 Academy F-16I IDF ‘Sufa’ Cockpit Set

If you want an aftermarket cockpit for your Sufa (or Polish or Greek or whatever F-16D), Wolfpack is your only option. This is a bit odd, considering the sheer number of cockpit options out there for the single-seaters.

I originally turned to Wolfpack after ruining my kit’s cockpit. How did I do that? Simple. I sanded off the detail to (idiotically) use Eduard color PE. What looked gorgeous on the fret looked chintzy and flat once installed. So, off to pursue some resin!

To my surprise, the Wolfpack cockpit didn’t just fit. It fit perfectly. Without cleanup (though you do have to remove the pour stub on the bottom…and it’s mostrous).

Detail isn’t quite up to the standard of Aires on its best day, but it’s still a marked improvement over the kit plastic and includes plenty of detail to go to town on.

The sidewalls didn’t prove an issue, either, since they basically sit more on the main tub, and since the cockpit sills leave a nice overhand to work underneath. You can see the mounting locations in the pic below.

Another nifty feature? Those two holes at the very back of the cockpit. They fit exactly into locating post in the Academy kit. Imagine that – a resin cockpit that is straight-up designed to play nice with the kit.

Here’s the final, installed result.

Detail – Pretty good. A solid 7.5 or 8.

Does it Fit? – Yes. It’s a complete drop-fit. 

Worth it? – Absolutely

AIRES #2129 – 1/32 F-16I Sufa Wheel Bay Set (Academy)

I’m typically not a fan of aftermarket wheelbays. I just don’t feel there’s enough benefit for the level of effort many of them demand. But with the F-16, there are two considerations in play. First, it’s main gear bays are pretty visible. Second, the barrel shape of the fuselage means a lot of the grinding and sanding and thinning to fit wing-located bays wouldn’t be an issue. So I decided to take a change for all that delicious detail.

And wouldn’t you know it? Another drop fit.

Literally nothing to remove. The part just drops right into place. And painting it was a blast.

When I have a second go at Academy’s big two-seater Viper, I will be using the main gear bay again for sure.

Detail – Perfection in resin

Does it Fit? – Yes. It’s a drop fit. 

Worth it? – Oh god yes. 

Earlier today, a modeler posted a video to a Facebook group. A video of most of his completed builds making a trip into the trash can. He’s moving, see, and wants a fresh start with the new house.

If you’ve spent any amount of time on the internet, you can guess where this went. Pearls were clutched. Virtues were signaled. Butts were hurt.

Look. Most museums don’t want your cast-offs.  Most hobby shops – if they’re still around – probably don’t have space to house them. Models are too fragile for kids to play with. Selling completed kits on eBay? I guess. But it’s a pain in the ass.

Look. I have a weird hang-up about giving away your cast-offs. If I’m going to give a kit to a museum, I want it to be the pride of my collection, not something I built years ago that I’ve long since progressed from.

Look. Ultimately, none of that matters. Because what you do with a model that you purchased is your business and yours alone. You don’t get to cast moral aspersions on someone else doing what they will with their own things. Fuck, how many kits never get built? How many only make it to the shelf of doom? At least a completed kit had its time in the sun.

But holding on to every one…for what? It’s like holding on to every picture you ever take, even the blurry ones or the ones that are poorly framed or the ones where you took five of the same damn shot to try to get the toddler to look at the camera at the same time as everyone else.

We cull the herd in almost every other aspect of our life. We even attach a kind of nobility to it. We call it “spring cleaning” or “decluttering”. But you toss a completed build, even one you’ve moved on from, or weren’t that proud of to begin with, and the knives of indignation come out.

Well fuck that. It’s my model and I can do what I want with it. And your model is your model, and you can do what you want with it.

Even if that means smashing the fuck out of them with a rock.

Every time a Shizouka Hobby Show or All-Japan Model & Hobby Show roll around, the modeling community gets all pins and needles in anticipation of the latest Tamiya release. There are other manufacturers, too, but for the most part their new stuff blows cover well before it’s shown publicly. Tamiya seems to be one of the very few that holds its powder for industry event reveals.

At this year’s AJMHS, the betting money was on a variant of their excellent F-14. Well, until the last few weeks, when work of a new 1/48 tooling squeaked out.

It turned out to be a new 1/48 Bf 109G-6.

Yay?

Unlike last year’s F-14, or even the Ki-61 (more on that in a minute), it seems like the 109 is receiving something of a muted reception. But I’m sure it’ll still sell like hotcakes.

With Tamiya’s 1/32 releases, I usually do a quick post on the kit and its implications.  Even though the 109 is 1/48, I figure that it’s a significant enough release to justify the same. So let’s get into it.

Great. Another 109.

This is the prevailing sentiment floating around the interwebs right now. And it’s valid. Usually, Tamiya does a pretty good job of wading into a subject area it can exploit. But with the 109G-6, the field is already littered with competitors. Many of them – like Academy and Arii – aren’t particularly great and can be more or less discounted. That still leaves the venerable Hasegawa and the newer Eduard and Zvezda kits, however.

What can Tamiya possibly bring to the table that’s not already there?

In a word – itself. Tamiya is one of the few brands that is an absolute guarantee of quality engineering and fit. I have no doubt this 109 will build beautifully.

And the Tamiya quality alone will ensure that they sell a ton – unless they do something crazy with the price and list it at $80.

The Price is an Open Question

Eduard’s Bf 109G-6 Profi-Packs have an MSRP of $50, and a street price of around $40. I’d expect Tamiya to show up at a slight premium above that, especially considering the included engine.

The similar-sized, DB 605-having Ki-61 has an MSRP/Street of $52/$42, for example. And the 109 will probably follow in its footsteps.

The Variants are Another Open Question

Tamiya sucks at covering off on variants. They’ll do a few and then move on, leaving us without, say, a P-47N or a Spitfire Mk.IX or an A6M2 Zero. Or the oft-wished for F-16D.

And if there’s one thing that the 109 is known for, it’s an absolute fuckton of variants. Even among the G-6, you’ve got the early short tail, the later with the taller tail and rudder, versions with the usual canopy cage, versions with the Erla Haube hood, and so on. Then you’ve got the various G-10s, the G-14, and the like.

It’s practically a given that Eduard will produce every single one of these. But Tamiya? Don’t hold your breath.

Granted, they have clearly designed the kit with provisions for additional variants. The cowl “cheeks” are separate, and the tail in particular is cut up to easily fit the tall tail and rudder if desired.

BUT the F-16 has provisions that set up a two-seater, so just because Tamiya’s laid the groundwork doesn’t mean it’s going to happen.

It Has an Engine

Like last year’s Ki-61, the new 109G-6 boasts an engine, something of a rarity for a V-arrangement engine in a Tamiya 1/48 kit, and something that will set it apart from the Hasegawa and Eduard kits (but not the Zvezda). I’d imagine this kit’s development is perhaps part of the reason that we got the DB 605 in the Ki-61 kit, and can’t help but wonder if it has implications for future larger scale subjects.

There are also separate parts for building the cowl panels opened up, or closed. A practice that Tamiya has used to great effect in the past (for landing gear doors, or for wing sweep components on the F-14), and that manufacturers like Kitty Hawk could stand to learn from.

New Paints? Maybe?

New Tamiya kits are frequently accompanied by new Tamiya paints. Frustratingly, those paints are often rattlecans. But while a rattlecan might work for, say, a 1/32 Corsair, it’s not going to cut it for 1/48 mottling. So we might – might – be seeing some new XF paints for RLM 74/75/76.

It May Portend Future 1/32 Developments. Or Not.

At this point, outside of timing, I have no idea what the fuck is going to happen with Tamiya’s next 1/32 subject. Precedent would have had a whole new subject landing this past May, but instead we got the F4U-1D. Next year, odds are we will be seeing a whole new subject.

What will it be though? If they keep going along their 1/48 release order, a P-47 or Me 262 still seems likely. But their 1/48 moves are muddying the waters. A case could be made for a new-tool 1/32 F-14 to replace their nearly 40-year-old original tooling.

And now, a case could certainly be made for a Bf 109. It would require some backpedaling from Tamiya in terms of pricepoints. I’ll buy kits at the drop of a hat, and even I’d balk at spending $100+ on a 109 kit, no matter how good it was or who made it. I can only imagine the reaction of those who think that Hobby Lobby’s kit selection is overpriced.

I’m pissed at the prospect of a 109 potentially bumping a 1/32 P-47 out of the way, but at this point, if we’re being honest, I’d have to say that a 109G-6 just became the favorite for Tamiya’s next 1/32 release. And I’d buy one, and build it up in Finnish or Romanian or Italian service. All the while stewing at not having my dreamed of 1/32 Tamiya Jug.

Saturday, October 7, 2017. My big 1/32 Trumpeter MiG-23 had been plodding along, and was nearly at the painting stage. But I decided to take a week off for a little sidecar project – a 1/144 Bandai T-65 X-Wing.

Why? A few reasons.

First, the MiG-23 has been a slow, steady project, but one that’s nowhere near its endpoint. In fact, I’m just about to get into the fun stuff. But it’d be nice to make some quick progress on something.

Second, the annual Austin contest is on Saturday the 14th, and it’d be nice to have one more thing to enter I guess. I’m not really expecting a tiny X-Wing to do all that great against what will probably be a table stuffed with larger Bandai kits, but whatever.

Third, my project load at work is rather intense at the moment,  and to be honest I wasn’t sure I’d have the mental bandwidth to really focus on the MiG-23. But modeling is my decompression mechanism, so…something had to be on the bench.

Fourth, a model this small and simple gave me a great reason to sit at the kitchen table with the kids while we all did something crafty. I did the X-Wing while 2 and 3 painted. It was good fun.

Fifth, I wanted to see if I could take a kit from cracking the box to finishing it up in under a week. My build rate has slowed considerably in recent years, and even on something as small as a 1/144 X-Wing, that span seems daunting.

Sixth, I’d like to have a small model that I could plop on the desk at work, and a tiny X-Wing seems like a good choice.

Priming and painting the tiny X-Wing was a quick affair. And while I primed in black as per usual, I didn’t really focus much on tonal variation since the thing is tiny anyway.

Saturday

Sunday

Instead of white, I opted to use MRP-256 Clear Doped Linen, which is a lovely off-white shade with a hint of warm grey to it.

Monday

For markings, I decided to use Nicholas Sagan’s excellent Blue Squadron decal sheet. It’s a bit of a pain to carefully trim out the decals since the whole sheet is carrier filmed, but the decals themselves are thin-yet-tough and conform very well. Certainly better than Bandai’s decals.

The decals are also slightly translucent, which is fine considering the monotone nature of the X-Wing’s base paint.

Oh, and the various color patches are already chipped up, which is a huge bonus.

Due to the annoying nature of Bandai’s X-Wings, I had to do the wings first, since I wouldn’t be able to easily access the inner wings once the s-foils were locked into the fuselage.

The canopy on this kit is, annoyingly, solid plastic. The canopy decal fits excellently, and the black mostly looks the part, but in an ideal world this would at least be some kind of glossy black film that could be applied.

Tuesday

After the wing decals were all sorted, I closed the s-foils inside the fuselage and glued the bastard tight, then went back and touched up the affected areas with paint.

Wednesday

Next up came the balance of the decals on the fuselage. I went a little bit free-form with these and added some additional color splashes ahead of the cockpit.

Thursday

With all the decals applied, I moved straight into weathering. As it turns out, AK’s Engine Grime makes an absolutely ideal wash for the X-Wing.

While others have had issues with mineral spirits and Bandai plastic, it wasn’t an issue when I built the A-Wing, and it’s not proving to be an issue with the X-Wing either.

Friday

Some final weathering in the form of sponging some Ammo Medium Gray panel line wash on the surface. This is really something that would work better in larger scales, and here it does an okay job.

After the sponging, a coat of Gunze Mr. Color Flat Clear sealed everything up, and the diminutive Blue 3 officially moved into the Completed column.

And just to show how much of a lilliputian this T-65 is, here it is next to an SD card for scale:

Wrapping Up

I’m not about to call this X-Wing my best work – or even anywhere close – but it provided a nice change of pace from the protracted MiG-23 build. And maybe, just maybe, it’s opened the door to an antidote to my rather bad shelf-of-doomitis. Instead a of starting another project, getting lost in it, and repeating that vicious cycle, this is more of a quick breather before diving back in. I think I may well look at picking up a few other 1/144 Bandai kits, and perhaps some Eduard MiG-21s, which I’ve built before and very much enjoyed, and see if the “quick distraction” thing holds.

The Kit Itself

What did I make of the Bandai kit itself? Overall, it’s awesome. A miniature version of their already very good 1/72 X-Wing. In some ways, I think it’s better, since you don’t have the bullshit with the body being broken up with the different colored paneling (hey Bandai, cut that shit out). But the surface detail is exquisite and the fit leaves nothing to complain about.

There are, however, four things I’d put in the minus column. They’re small complaints, but complaints nonetheless:

1. The solid canopy is kinda bullshit. If nothing else, give us a heavily smoked clear part, or a shiny black part, and then just decals for the framing. The decal works decently, but only decently.
2. The fit is too tight. This is true of other Bandai kits as well. The press-fit idea is nice and all and good for novice modelers. BUT it doesn’t lend itself to test-fitting or modular building. When I built the A-Wing, this is something I ran afoul of, with a test-fit becoming a “well I’m never getting that back off” fit. The way around this is to cut, ream, and otherwise mess with the internal mounting lugs and holes so that they are looser and allow placement and removal.
3. The s-foil/fuselage assembly is inconvenient. I don’t like having to trap the wings in the fuselage. I just don’t. It makes it tough to get at the inside of the s-foils, and it means you have this awkward break in construction to paint, and painting to construct. I’m told the Fine Molds kits have a different approach to this that works better, but I have zero experience with them so I can’t confirm or deny.
4. The mold seams are annoying.  In 1/144, mold seams are rather noticeable, and for the most part they aren’t a big deal on the X-Wing. But when they are a big deal, it’s really noticeable, such as on the wingtip laser cannons. Frustratingly, the seams on the cannon housings are difficult because of the contours and details. And the seams on the laser barrels (?) are difficult because of how fragile those parts are. I’m not sure what all can be done here, but it’s an annoyance that should be taken into account. As I was moving fast and breaking things, I didn’t notice until I’d already started on a few of the barber pole decals, but I’d be more diligent there next time out.

So…that’s it. A nice, quick build and a good six-day distraction. Now back to Floggertown!

When we’re shooting photos of our models, there are a lot of factors to consider. Lighting. Proper white balance. Aperture.

But there’s one factor that is often overlooked, and that can play a significant role in the look and feel of your images.

Focal length.

Dorky Photography Stuff

Now, technically, focal length refers to the distance between the lens and the image sensor of your camera. Functionally, though, it’s basically an expression of “zoom” or picture angle. A shorter focal length will have a wider picture angle or field of view than a longer focal length.

Now, there are some out there who claim that shorter and longer focal lengths introduce distortion into an image. But outside of the really short end, where you get barrel distortion around the edges of the image, that’s really not the case. If you stay in the same place and shoot the same subject, and only vary the focal length, as you can see with the barn up there, distortion isn’t a factor.

Distortion does come into play, however, when you change your perspective relative to your subject.

What the fuck does that mean? Well, let’s say that you were shooting that same barn, but each time you changed focal lengths, you moved to keep the barn the same relative size in the frame. At longer focal lengths, the barn would appear flatter, and the background closer. At shorter focal lengths, the barn would appear larger and more dimensional, with the background falling away behind it.

These cans show the idea rather well. It’s not the focal length that is causing the feel of these different images to change so much, but the distance from the subject.

How does this apply to modeling?

Recently, I’ve been working on Trumpeter’s 1/32 MiG-23. It’s a big, long aircraft, and ungainly as hell to shoot. What’s more, with my usual 60mm lens, I had to pull back so far to shoot the damn thing that it was starting to feel…compressed.

I mean, this is a big model. But in the photos, it almost looks like a 1/48 kit. And the wings and tail look unnaturally compacted.

So I decided to do a little visual demonstration.

Here is the MiG-23 shot with my 60mm lens.

Now, here it is shot with my 35mm lens, from the same position.

If you look closely, there’s no distortion here, but there’s a much wider field of view. And that field of view lets me get my camera closer.

When that happens, the proportions distort to give the Flogger more a feeling of dimension, with the nearer elements growing larger, and the further elements smaller.

It can be tough to really appreciate the difference that the combination of focal length + distance can make in the feel of an image, so I’ve combined the two for easier comparison.

If you compare these two images, the 35mm lens and closer shooting distance invoke a much more epic sense of scale. The tail is larger. The wings longer. The nose stretches further into the distance.

What is “right”?

It’s generally said that 50mm is a “neutral” focal length, in that it basically captures the same field of view as the in-focus portion of our natural eyesight. But we also have peripheral vision and depth perception. And when you get up close to an aircraft or a tank or whatnot,  it can seem rather imposing.

By playing around with your focal length and your distance from the subject, you can recreate some of that same sense of scale with your model photography. Is it correct? Well, I’d say it’s a matter of perspective.

To see the perspective in action, I’ve shot three subjects – my 1/32 Ki-84 Hayate, 1/35 T-80BV, and 1/32 F-104S-ASA Starfighter – with three different lenses. My 35mm, 60mm, and 100mm. As you can see, the focal length + perspective shift creates vastly different senses of proportion, allowing you to play with different ways of capturing your builds.

Which do you prefer?

Ki-84 Hayate

T-80BV

F-104S-ASA Starfighter

Why is it important to learn how to use your camera’s manual controls to shoot photos of your models?

Because when it comes to model photography, digital cameras are dumb as shit.

Your Dumbass Camera

The automatic modes in digital cameras – be they point-and-shoots, DSLRs, or the camera in your smartphone – are programmed for lifestyle photography. Dogs and toddlers and selfies and your food at that restaurant that was overhyped. They’re prepared for that kind of shit, and increasingly, excel at it.

The daughter, courtesy of my Samsung Galaxy S8+

But when we shoot our models against uniform backdrops, these smart-at-the-everyday auto modes lose their shit. The see a great swath of white and they think “OVEREXPOSED!” and so they underexpose. Likewise, they see black and they overexpose.

This leaves you with photos that are either blown out or murky, depending on your backdrop of choice.

To demonstrate this, I took a few photos of the recently-completed X-Wing. Two with manual settings, and two with the camera flipped into aperture priority.

With aperture priority, my aperture and ISO remain constant, but the camera is free to select the shutter speed it thinks is best.

White and Underexposure

In aperture priority, here’s what my Nikon decided to do with a white background.

Aperture priority: ISO 100, f/32, 0.5 second exposure

Murky. Underexposed. Shit.

Now, with the camera flipped back into full manual control, I set the shutter speed to 1.6 seconds. Seems like forever, right? Well keep in mind that I’m shooting with a 60mm lens cranked all the way to f/32 (for greater depth of field for the MiG-23), and at such a small aperture, the camera needs a lot of light.

Full manual: ISO 100, f/32, 1.6 second exposure

That’s more like it. Though the white background isn’t particularly flattering to the X-Wing.

Now, let’s look at black backgrounds.

Black and Overexposure

When a camera in an automatic or semi-auto mode sees the expanse of black backdrop, it thinks everything is too dark, and so it adjusts accordingly.

Aperture priority: ISO 100, f/32, 3.0 second exposure

To overcome what it thought was severe underexposure, the Nikon went with a whopping 3-second exposure, and in so doing, blew out all the drama of the X-Wing.

Now, with manual control and back to the 1.6 second sweet spot:

Full manual: ISO 100, f/32, 1.6 second exposure

That’s more like it. The black backdrop fades out, the highlights on the X-Wing are tamed, and the nuances of the grungy surface emerge.

Shoot in Manual!

When you’re shooting on a backdrop, do yourself a favor and shoot in manual. If you’re stuck with a smartphone, snag the Adobe Lightroom Mobile app and use its camera. You can’t do much with aperture, but you can control ISO, shutter speed, and exposure compensation. You can also shoot in RAW (well, in DNG, which is Adobe’s RAW format), and if you have Lightroom on your computer, you can set up automatic syncing and all that jazz.

And if you do have a real camera that has real manual controls, once you get them dialed in, you can come back to them over and over again with clean, predictable results.

Last week, I finally got to the point of installing the gear struts on my 1/32 Trumpeter MiG-23MLA (the kit is technically the MLD, but being built as a Bulgarian MLA). And…fuck. The thing looks like it’s standing on its tip-toes.

Since I’m currently about 1700 miles away from my bench, I’ve been thinking about it from afar, and thought it’d be useful – at least to me – to do a little exploration into what the fuck is going on.

First, A Lesson in Floggers

“But Floggers sit really nose high!”

This is a piercing insight I’ve read multiple times since I put the -23 on its feet. But here’s the thing. It’s wrong.

The early Floggers, like the MiG-23MF, sat nose high. Like so.

Later Floggers, like the MiG-23ML, MLA, and MLD, had a rather different stance.

That last one seems to have the nose gear at full extension…but other late -23s look like they’re sitting on almost collapsed nose struts.

As you can see from all of these images, the late model MiG-23s sit a lot more level than the early ones. And that level has some variability to it depending on the height of the nosegear and I’d guess hydraulic pressure/weight of fuel impacting the rear struts.

TL;DR? Floggers have quite variable stances and it’s the early ones that were ass-draggers.

Trumpeter’s MiG-23…What the Fuck?

Late MiG-23s have varying stances, but none of them look quite so high as where I ended up.

And judging by other builds of the 1/32 Flogger, I’m not the only one who’s ended up here.

Though I should add that the light table can be deceiving. When shot in profile, it doesn’t look that far off of some of the reference photos (pardon the shitty shot – the phone decided to focus on the background, but it’s what I’ve got to work with at the moment).

But still, something seems amiss.

Maybe I built the gear legs wrong? That might be a possibility, except that there’s quite simply no way to do that. Putting the lower legs on backwards or upside down or whatever would mean that other linkages simply would not fit. And they fit quite nicely.

There is Another

Here’s a thing. Trumpeter has made three different 1/32 MiG-23s. An early MF, and then the ML and MLD.

To account for the difference in stance, Trumpeter uses two different lower leg parts. The MF (top) has a compressed damper, and a very shallow angle. The parts intended for the ML and MLD (bottom) extend the damper, and in so doing create a steeper angle coming off the lateral arms.

My Theory

Here’s what I think happened. Trumpeter designed the MF variant first. MFs, again, typically have a very tall nose strut, and an ass-dragging stance.

To support the weight of the kit, Trumpeter uses metal cores for its nose strut and the main gear lateral arms. While the outer parts of the ML/MLD nose gear are different, the metal core is the same, necessitating a fully extended nose gear at an angle you don’t see on the late Floggers very often.

When they changed the stance for the late MiG-23s, then, they raised the main gears by adding angle to the lower gear arms and extending the dampers. But they did so against the very tall nose gear. Resulting in a too-tall Flogger.

Other Factors

Could other things be at work?

Sure. Perhaps Trumpeter has the angle right on the lower legs, but just made them too long.

Perhaps the resin gear bays sit in slightly different locations, with millimeter differences that snowball.

Perhaps the resin tires are too big.

Perhaps I’m missing something.

Am I Going to Fix It?

No. I’m already fighting to overlook the MiG-23’s numerous small accuracy foibles. One of the reasons I chose it as a subject is that I don’t (or didn’t) know all that much about it, and wasn’t particularly interested in doing so. The more I’ve had to research and learn, the more glaring the accuracy goofs have become. And if I let myself get sucked into them, it’ll never get done.

Maybe if I’d kept the MF lower legs I’d consider giving them a go – but I set those aside early in the build and ultimately tossed them.

Of course, I say all this now. When I get back to the bench it may be a different decision. Fuck.

I know, I know. This is a modeling blog. But for this one post, it’s not going to be. Because I have to talk about Star Wars: The Last Jedi. And I have to talk about it in more depth than a Facebook post allows.

Don’t like it? Don’t care? Don’t want to be spoiled if you haven’t seen it yet? Simple – don’t read.

Two quick notes before we dive in.

• First, this post will contain spoilers. Fair warning.
• Second, this post will probably be long. Because I have a lot of thoughts.

*****SPOILERS AND RAMBLING FROM THIS POINT ON*****

On the Divisiveness

The Last Jedi is more divisive than any Star Wars film – and perhaps any major franchise film – I can recall. And yes, I say that in the wake of the prequels.

That’s because with the prequels, there’s a general consensus around their flaws. With the notable exception of Ewan MacGregor, the performances were not great. The dialogue and storytelling were clunky. The reliance on CGI was often a distraction. The lightsaber fights could be great, but could also slip into flipping and spinning out of an amusement park stunt spectacular.

The thing is…even people who love the prequels acknowledge these flaws, and love I, II and III in spite of them.

With The Force Awakens, you have a similar dynamic. The broad strokes similarity to A New Hope, from a droid with secret information to a spherical planet-killing superlaser, is broadly acknowledged. Love it or hate it, nobody is out there saying “there’s no similarity to Episode IV!”.

The Last Jedi is different. There are a few elements of universal eye-rolling – bombers in space, Leia’s Force Poppins – but a lot of the big moments of the movie are polarizing as shit. The portrayal of Luke. The fleet chase. Canto Bight. Rose. Snoke’s abrupt end. Luke fucking dying. Or transcending or whatever.

Some people love these things. Myself included. Other people hate the shit out of them.

And on some level, if you hated this movie, I agree with you. Or rather, I understand where you’re coming from.

Because ultimately, when a lot of us expected this movie to zig, to show us the Jedi Master Skywalker we’ve been picturing and reading about in the EU for three decades, it zagged. And it zagged hard. It’s not that it didn’t live up to our expectations, it’s that it took our expectations and ran in the opposite direction. It didn’t even try to live up to them.

And that’s hard to swallow. And if you’re not willing to go with the movie, if you’re holding on to those expectations, I can see how they can work against you. Maybe this rabbit hole will help you adjust your perspective, maybe not.

Nobody hates Star Wars like Star Wars fans

Before diving into the movie itself, I want to address one segment of haters that I just do not agree with. Those are the ones saying that The Last Jedi is not Star Wars, that Disney ruined Star Wars, that are starting fucking online petitions to give Star Wars back to George Lucas (lol – how would that even work?).

Star Wars has always been campy and mythic and hand-wavy. Star Wars has always had plot holes and vehicles that make no sense. The Empire was brought down by teddy bears. The most powerful being in the original trilogy was a green swamp frog muppet.

Disney, more than any other major studio, understands that the best way to make money is to make good movies. And in the last 15 or so years, they’ve shown that the best way to do that is to let their properties more or less set their own destinies. Pixar has given us some of the best animated movies ever made, and they show no signs of slowing down. Any other studio would have followed Incredibles with Incredibles 2 in 2007 or 2008. Disney let Pixar wait until they had a story they wanted to tell – and here we are getting Incredibles 2 thirteen years after the first one. They’ve let Marvel build, film-by-film, a massive, interconnected cinematic universe that stands as one of the most impressive feats in the history of filmmaking. And they’re letting Kathleen Kennedy and Lucasfilm do their own thing with Star Wars.

And honestly, Lucasfilm is being fearless. The original script for Rogue One had several of the characters surviving, because of an assumption that Lucasfilm wouldn’t let them kill off the entire cast. Kathleen Kennedy told them to go for it. The Last Jedi doesn’t go the way fan expectations think – which is the opposite of what you’d expect from a profit-driven greed factory.

If you want a counterpoint, look at how badly Warner Brothers is stumbling with the DC films. They keep course correcting, trying to adjust to fan expectations, and we get shit like Batman v. Superman, Suicide Squad and Justice League.

Ultimately, I think this particular segment of haters want to be right more than they want a good movie.

Accept the past

Okay, let’s actually get into The Last Jedi.

Earlier this week I was asked to sum up TLJ in three words for someone who hasn’t seen it yet. And it took me a minute, but ultimately my answer was “accept the past”.

This movie is all about the past, and our relationship with it. If you extrapolate that into a commentary on the state of Star Wars and how we see it, it becomes quite meta. But for the moment, let’s stick with the movie itself.

Almost every character in the movie is obsessed with the past. I think the only one who isn’t is Leia. She’s the only one who is clear-eyed about it throughout pretty much the entire film.

Rey wants to know where she came from, who her parents are, why she has this Force sensitivity, and how all of that defines her “place in all this”.

Kylo Ren wants to obliterate the past. Maybe, subconsciously, he knows that his reaction to Luke in his hut was over the top, and that his perception was clouded by the dark side. From the temple slaughter to joining the First Order, murdering Lor San Tekka, murdering his own father, if he turns around and accepts the past and accepts what he has done, well, it’s too much. So instead of facing it, he seeks to destroy the past and tear everything down.

Luke is haunted and ashamed of the past, of his hubris and his failure. He started to believe in his own legend, and when he failed in a moment of fear and weakness, he couldn’t face it. Couldn’t face Leia and Han. Couldn’t face the enormity of the horror that he created Kylo Ren. The legendary Luke Skywalker would never do that, so he ran the fuck away from the legend. Cut off his connection to the Force. Left his X-Wing sunk on the sea floor, and drank green alien walrus tit milk.

Finn starts the movie still running from his past, from the First Order. He has one thing he cares for – Rey – and his first thought when shit goes south is to run to protect himself and protect her.

Poe is the gifted flyboy still living in his glory days as an ace pilot. He thinks hotshot flying and attacking against impossible odds is the way out of any crisis. When his approach leads to massive losses over D’Qar, and especially once he loses his X-Wing, that certainty is cast adrift.

The idea…cemented most prominently in Rey’s storyline…is accepting the past for what it truly is, and then accepting that it is the past. The trippy infinity mirror scene in the cave? It confused me a bit the first time I saw TLJ, but on the second viewing it became clearer. When the cave shows her the two shadowy figures merging into one, who turns out to be her, what it’s really telling her is “it doesn’t matter who your parents were – what matters is who you are”.

It’s not that the past doesn’t matter. It’s not that everything Luke, Han and Leia did in the original trilogy is meaningless. It’s that it’s the past. And to go all meta here, reliving the past, freezing Star Wars in amber and telling the same story again and again, is not the right path. It’s not a healthy path.

When Yoda says “we are what they move beyond”…well…

Once our characters accept the past, that’s when they start to grow. Luke accepts that Kylo Ren is his fault, and takes the extraordinary step of becoming the legend the galaxy thinks he is. Finn confronts Phasma, literally puts a dent in the armor of the First Order, and instead of running away, is willing to die charging at them. He maybe course corrected too far and clearly still has some growing to do.

Poe becomes a wiser leader.

And Rey comes to understand that her “place in all this” is hers to determine. Not her parents’, not Luke’s, not Kylo’s, hers. This moment of clarity is also when she stops trying to turn him and instead goes for the lightsaber, resulting in the tug-of-war.

Kylo, meanwhile, doesn’t learn this acceptance and becomes increasingly blinded by his drive to destroy the past. He fails to notice for far too long that the Luke he is facing on Crait is not real – even though he doesn’t leave footprints in the salt, even though he’s wielding the blade that Kylo himself played a role in destroying shortly before. And by the time he notices, the Resistance has escaped.

Don’t sacrifice for nothing

Some of the most defining moments of the original trilogy are suicide attacks against long odds with heavy losses – the assault on both Death Stars.

So it’s somewhat ironic that Leia would slap Poe for leading a suicide attack against long odds with heavy losses. When I mentioned that she’s the only character not obsessed with the past, this is where it starts. The Resistance is not the Rebellion. It’s not as well supported, it doesn’t have the numbers or the equipment. Every ship, every life is precious and not to be sacrificed unless absolutely necessary. And taking out one dreadnought is not absolutely necessary.

We see this again a few times with the fleet intrigue between Poe and Holdo, and of course on Crait when Poe calls off the doomed ski speeder attack. Finn has picked up the zealotry of a convert, but Rose, who already lost her sister in a pointless sacrifice, takes action to save Finn.

Legends aren’t real

The Last Jedi spends a lot of time tearing down legends and idols. Principally with Luke Skywalker. But also with Poe (Holdo cuts right through his legendary reputation) and Finn (Rose discovers the coward behind the heroic veneer). Snoke, too, gets cut down (literally) after fans have spent two years building him up in all manner of theories.

It’s brilliant then, that when Luke finally does act, does embrace the legend of Luke Skywalker, he does it as a fucking projection. It’s how we want to see Luke – but it’s not the real Luke.

At the same time, by embracing that legend, by playing that role, Luke brings hope to the galaxy. A hope that he let wane after he walked away from the legend before.

Failure is the best teacher

Accepting the past is about accepting the good – and the bad. Which Luke did not, and Yoda admonishes him for.

Failure – if you can face it – is the best teacher. It is where true growth comes from. But accepting failure requires humility – and if you notice, Luke talks a lot about vanity in this movie. And Poe kind of embodies it. It’s only when they’re taken to task by their mentors that they embrace their failures.

And ultimately, the entire movie is about failure. Poe’s dreadnought attack is a tactical victory but a strategic failure, as it came at too dear a cost (and maybe gave the First Order time to set up tracking of the Raddus…but that’s just conjecture). Rey fails to bring Luke back to the Resistance, but in that failure learns valuable lessons about herself. Rey also fails to turn Kylo from the dark side, again with valuable lessons.

Finn and Rose’s subplot to Canto Bight is the biggest failure of all. Not only do they not enlist the help of the master codebreaker, not only do they get arrested, not only do they not disable the hyperspace tracker, DJ’s betrayal allows the First Order to locate and target the transports, killing hundreds of Resistancers (when can we just start calling them rebels again?) and creating an even more dire situation. If they’d never gone on that mission, the transports could have escaped to Crait, the Raddus could have jumped away, and the First Order fleet, none the wiser, would have followed.

As it stands, all that’s left of the Resistance can fit comfortably on the Falcon.

There is power in not fighting

Do you know why Luke is a legend? Because, in a moment of truth, he did not fight. He tossed his lightsaber aside and declared that he was a Jedi, like his father before him. In not fighting, in pleading with his father, he turned Vader from the dark side.

Luke’s greatest triumph was, essentially, pacifism.

But for the last two years, everyone’s been eagerly picturing him slamming AT-ATs around with the Force and fighting off thousands of Stormtroopers and basically being a Force god.

Rey herself was hoping for this, and Luke shoots her down with a line about facing down the entire First Order with a laser sword.

And looking back at ROTJ, and at his triumph in the throne room, it makes sense.

It also makes sense that Luke goes out with the most non-confrontational confrontation in all of Star Wars. He’s not even there. He never trades so much as a blow with Kylo. And he wins that encounter by getting way inside Kylo’s head, and by buying the Resistance time to escape.

Save the ones we love

Rose’s line on Crait seemed a bit hokey the first time I heard it, but it’s been growing on me.

“It’s not about killing the people we hate, it’s about saving the ones we love. That’s how we’re going to win this war.”

I don’t think this is a call to some kind of flowers-in-barrels pacifism. It’s more about the idea of fighting for something rather than against something. And Finn had kind of lost track of that – “I won’t let them win”, etc.

Think back to the original trilogy. Most of the action is about “saving the ones we love”. Luke, Han, Obi-Wan and Chewie head off to save Leia. The X-Wings attack the Death Star to save Yavin IV. Han returns to the fight to save Luke during the trench run. A movie later, he heads out into the Hoth night to save Luke. Leia stays as Echo Base is collapsing around her to save the evacuating Rebels. Luke heads to Cloud City against Yoda’s warnings to save his friends. He, Leia and friends save Han from Jabba. And he ultimately confronts Vader to 1) save his friends and 2) save his father.

If Poe had been more concerned with saving the Resistance rather than taking out that dreadnought, Paige and the bomber squadron would probably still be around. Which is totally in keeping with the original trilogy and also what we know of the Force.

Nobody can be somebody

A New Hope set up a classic everyman fantasy – a farmboy from a backwater world going on a grand adventure, learning mysterious new powers, rescuing a princess, and striking a massive blow against the evil Empire.

There’s the sense that anybody can become the hero.

And as great as The Empire Strikes Back is, it’s the film that started to unwind that egalitarian optimism. Luke wasn’t just special, he was special. The son of Darth Vader.

This cascaded frightfully in the prequels, when we learned that Anakin was the chosen one. And when midichlorians were introduced. Suddenly we had bloodline and an actual Force scoreboard. And Force sensitivity was hereditary.

And it infected everything. Our main characters in the prequels were all special – Jedi Masters and the Chancellor and a Queen/Senator. Jyn Erso in Rogue One had to be the daughter of the man who designed the Death Star. Even the characters in Rebels have powerful lineage.

For the last…hell…going back to the first rumblings of The Force Awakens, we’ve been speculating about who Rey’s parents are. She has to be a Skywalker, right? Or maybe a Kenobi somehow? Or she’s a clone of Palpatine or a vergence of the Force or something.

But she’s not. She’s nobody.

And I fucking love it. We have our egalitarian, accessible Force back. We have the sense that anybody can be a hero.

And if not Rey…there’s Finn. The janitor-stormtrooper who managed to break his conditioning and defect from the First Order. There’s also Rose, who in past movies would have been the sort we see running around and getting blown up in the background while our heroes save the day.

And if it’s still not connecting that heroes can come from anywhere (like Ratatouille…in space with lasers and shit), the movie ends on broom boy.

Random Musings

This movie is a lot deeper and more thoughtful – at least in terms of themes and arcs – than it may seem on first viewing. Which is why this post has stretched for so long…when you really start digging, there’s a lot to sift through.

But some stuff doesn’t fit very well into the larger thematic unpacking above, so here are a bunch of random musings for discussion/amusement/hatred.

Chewie is the best father figure for Rey. I saw this in a tweet – but think about it. He drives her to Jedi practice and keeps the car running. He loves to grill. He drops her off to meet the new boy he doesn’t exactly approve of, but just tells her to get home safe.

Twas better to have recognized a trap and died, then to never have recognized a trap at all. Yes, Ackbar dies in this movie. And rather unceremoniously. And fans are apoplectic. But…come on. Ackbar is the perfect case of 30 years of expectations and expanded universe wish fulfilment coming home to roost. The fish admiral has what, three lines in Return of the Jedi? And he’s goofy looking, so there’s a certain humor to him. And that humor got turned into a meme. And he had a pretty prominent role in the Thrawn trilogy. All of which made him somewhat of an icon outside the movies. But that’s…outside the movies. I’d say be thankful that Mr. Fish got the kiss of canon with cameos in TFA and TLJ. Besides…as much as I like Ackbar, Rogue One topped him with Admiral Raddus.

Shut up about the bombers. Star Wars has never been about realistic military tech. They’re an obvious homage to B-17s. Hell, the name is Starfortress (which is a play on the Flying Fortress, Superfortress, etc.). How do they drop bombs in space? With electromagnets. Why do they even bother with bombs? My guess is that slow-moving bombs can pass through deflectors while energy weapons and high-speed projectiles can’t. But we’re arguing about this when Empire featured giant, completely impractical walking tank things that were designed to be a space nazi version of ancient war elephants.

The Holdo Maneuver. Holy shit who knew hyperspacing into a ship like that could be so beautifully devastating? And…if it’s that devastating how is it not a significant piece of combat doctrine? Fuck, where are the hyperspace torpedoes? Why didn’t the rebels sent a Mon Cal cruiser into the Death Star II at lightspeed in ROTJ? Don’t get me wrong – it works so well from a narrative, visual, audio, etc perspective. It just creates…problems for the larger universe.

Time is problematic in TLJ. Timing is problematic in Empire, too. But the compressed timescale of The Last Jedi, and it coming so hard on the heels of The Force Awakens, I just don’t feel it necessarily represents enough time for the character development that we see. It takes time to internalize and act.

The sequel trilogy’s ship designs continue to be derivative. In a way this makes sense – the Resistance is using what old shit it can get its hands on – hand-me-down X-Wings and A-Wings and the like. And the First Order seems to be doing variations on imperial designs. For a movie that upends so many other conventions, I was hoping for more.

The visual foreshadowing is amazing. Early on, we see a porg looking into the emitter end of the Anakin lightsaber, while another hops on the power switch, a nice tease of what’s coming for Snoke. When Leia Force-flies back into the Raddus, she passes through an upended hologram of the Supremacy – exactly where Holdo cleaves it later in the movie. And on Crait, there are a few glimpses of footsteps on the surface knocking away the salt to reveal the red crystal beneath – presenting one of the visual clues that tell you Luke is not really there later on.

We don’t need to know more about Snoke. Snoke is dead. And I hope to god he stays that way. Because his unceremonious bisection is a major fuck you to the conflict dynamic most fans were assuming we’d follow, with Rey turning Kylo and them defeating the bigger bad together. Bringing him back would cheapen that. And providing more information…while it would be nice…it isn’t necessary.

Episode IX is wide open(ish). Star Wars is Star Wars, so to an extent we know how Episode IX is going to go. The good guys are going to win. The bad guys are going to lose. There will almost certainly be a lightsaber duel. Kylo Ren may or may not turn from the dark side…but at this point I’m hoping he doesn’t. We’ve already been through that with Vader. Beyond that…who knows where it will go?

Episode IX needs a time jump. The events of TFA and TLJ play out over, at most, like two weeks. But the way things end, it seems like a time jump is necessary. The new rebellion needs to find its feet. Rey needs to build a new lightsaber. Kylo needs to consolidate his command of the First Order. Plus, a time jump would be an elegant, respectful way to phase Leia out. Make it five, ten years later. Leia, never fully recovered from her exposure to space, has become one with the Force. The rebels gather to pay their respects, providing a time for reunion and for filling the audience in on what’s been happening.

Episode IX needs new ship designs. We’ve had two movies now of lightly evolved X-Wings and TIE Fighters. But with the Resistance down to one ship – the Falcon – there’s an excellent opportunity for some new blood. Even if it’s a third-generation X-Wing.

So what did you think?

What did you like? Not like? Think I’m full of shit? Respond in the comments and all that business.

The last year at the bench has been a real struggle for me. And if I’m being honest, it was a continuing, and worsening, of trends that have been creeping up on me for a while. But they really landed hard in 2017.

There was the constant rearguard action against flagging motivation. Against my own perfectionist streak getting in the way. Annoyances I would have usually looked past festered and poisoned my goodwill toward more than a few kits.

Throughout the entire year, I only managed to finish three builds. Two were dinky little Bandai Star Wars kits, and the third, Tamiya’s F-14, was largely done in 2016. Aside from that, many works in progress fell by the wayside…

And I was always chasing the cure for this malaise. If I could just find the right kit, or the right subject, or…

You know what? None of that shit worked. My old standby – just getting the fucker into the painting stages – didn’t work.  I was at wit’s end. Hours at the bench with jack all to show for it except for frustration and fatigue.

Anagnorisis

There’s a term in classical Greek literature – anagnorisis – that marks the point where a character recognizes something essential, usually about their nature, and passes from ignorance to knowledge. A “scales from the eyes” moment.

That’s what I had right around the new year.

Modeling, and all the struggles I’d been having, weren’t the problem. They were a symptom. 

So what was the problem then? In a word, me.

For the last year (at least), I’ve been coasting, for lack of a better word. Going along and getting along, but in a pretty disconnected way. From my family, from work, from life in general. It was, I guess, easier to just disengage than to face down various and sundry concerns, anxieties and challenges. And it’s been horrible for me. In terms of my physical, mental and emotional well-being. And, as a spinoff of all of that, in terms of my modeling, too.

#FixThatShit

For 2018, my goal is both simple and incredibly difficult. Work on myself. Re-engage with my family, with work, with life in general. Get back to the point where modeling is a hobby and a way of decompressing and processing the day, not the weird addiction that occupies a good deal of my waking thoughts.

It’s been that way before…and when I look back on it…my favorite builds all coincide with moments where I was most engaged in life. I want to get back to that.

But…that’s going to mean a few changes around here and on the Facebook page.

I’m intending to pull away, for the most part, from the stream of WIP updates and the social media dopamine hits involved with them. I’ll still be posting tips and kit news and the occasional rant, and of course performing admin duties over at the Scale Modelers’ Critique Group, but I’m planning on doing something different with how I share builds. Something that gets back to the original mission of this blog; giving back as I can and helping those who are maybe just coming back into the hobby, or looking to change things up.

I’m not sure yet what that will look like…so stay tuned.

Bases have never really been my thing. In part, I think, because the focus of my modeling has typically leaned more toward aircraft, where bases are mostly an afterthought.

I’ve only ever put one aircraft on a base…and then only because the collapsed main gear would be too confusing without context.

But there are two other factors at play.

One, I’ve never felt like I have a head for picturing and executing bases. Whenever I’ve tried, I’ve rabbit-holed. I’ve gotten hung up on stupid shit. I’ve had trouble getting the drama I want out of them.

And two, I think probably 75-80% of bases look like shit. Instead of adding to a build, they detract from it.

I certainly haven’t been too happy with mine, historically. Too flat. Too single-element. Boring.

Meh.

When you do a base solely because the tires don’t sit level…

When you have a vision and can’t carry it off…

But then, I decided to add a base to my Takom AML-90. Three and a half years after my last attempts. Coming off a motivational collapse and housecleaning.

And even though I have only the slightest idea of what I’m doing, it came together rather well.

Perfect? Far from it. I should have played with the AML more before hitting it with mud. I should have made the shoulder stripe on the road narrower. I’m not entirely happy with the grass. I could have varied up the mud tones a bit more.

But it’s a start. And a hell of a lot more lively than my previous attempts.

It’s also awakened a desire to do even more bases.

The Patriot

The Patriot launcher and its M983 HEMTT, together, make for a rather long subject. Just about two feet. More than I trust a foam base to stand up to, so I’m stealing an old, unused 10×30 shelf.

If you look at deployed Patriots, sometimes they are set up on slopes – makes sense considering the advantages of the high ground and all that. And they often have some kind of blast barricade arrayed behind them. Here’s a handy example showing both.

My aim isn’t this exactly…but certainly inspired by this. Inclined slope, stabilizer legs up on risers, gravel, with blast walls behind. But perhaps a different climate, and perhaps some blast marks, like so…

I’ve got some ideas on how to pull this off, but it’s going to be awhile in the offing, given the scale of the build and how far I have to go.

The T-72B3

Another base I’m actively playing with is for Meng’s T-72B3. In this case, I’m taking inspiration from the Tank Biathlon, and this shot of a T-72 ramping over a small hill.

As with the Patriot, I’ve got many more miles to go, but I did some proof-of-concept testing a few nights ago to see if I could even pull this off. And with some fishing weights added where the engine would typically reside, well…

I can’t wait to play with pulling this one off, from the garish scheme and the varied terrain, the snow in places, to the icicles under the unditching log.

Way more planned…

I have to say, it feels great to be at a point where I’m feeling highly motivated again, and if anything held back by too many things I eagerly want to work on. In addition to the Patriot and T-72, I’ve got longer-term plans for doing fun things with a URAL-4320, M270 MLRS, AMX-13, and a few others that are mostly at the concept stage.

Stay tuned for more, and for I guess learning along with me as I slog through these attempts.

It’s been a little over a  year since my last build review – of Kitty Hawk’s maddening Su-17 Fitter. Why haven’t I returned to the well sooner? A few reasons.

• One. These reviews take a lot of time and effort – especially shooting and editing and publishing the videos.
• Two. I wanted to use my bench time for actually building kits. Or, let’s be honest about 2017, starting and then abandoning builds.
• Three. There honestly just haven’t been many kits that I’ve been interested in reviewing.
• Four. While these reviews have stirred up some excellent discussions, they also stir up petty bullshit from a small minority. And as Neal Stephenson so wonderfully wrote in Cryptonomicon, “arguing with anonymous strangers on the internet is a sucker’s game because they almost always turn out to be – or to be indistinguisahble from – self-righteous sixteen-year-olds possessing infinite amounts free time.” It’s…a bit tiresome.

A Contender

Last year, Kitty Hawk released a 1/48 Su-35, and I was absolutely not interested in it, or in any other Kitty Hawk kit after the extremely sour taste the Fitter left in my mouth.

But then Great Wall Hobby announced that they, too, were going to be releasing an Su-35.

A plan began to form. A versus build, stacking two kits of the same subject against each other.

All I had to do was wait for the Great Wall kit to release. This week, the kit finally hit US shores. Orders were placed, and now here we are. 

The Plan

This build review will be a bit different from my past reviews of the Fly Hurricane, Kinetic F/A-18C Hornet, and Kitty Hawk Su-17 Fitter. Let’s run through what you can expect.

There will be paint. In the past, I’ve done these reviews as just bare plastic. No filler. No paint. Nothing to hide behind. But it has occurred to me that the warts are very evident in video, even if they’re obscured later on.

Builds will be OOB. Neither of these kits will be utilizing aftermarket of any kind. I will only be using what is provided in the box.

There will be a longer time horizon. In the past I’ve slammed these build reviews out in about a month. That will not be the case this time. Because there are two kits. Because I’m actually going to be painting them. And because I have other shit I’m working on as well…

Engineering, fit, detail and overall quality are my main considerations. I will address accuracy in places where I know about it, but I don’t know the Su-35 all that well, and will mostly be going with an “ignorance is bliss” stance rather than angrily pointing out small dimensional errors with red arrows.

There will be bias. While I will absolutely give the Kitty Hawk -35 a fair hearing, I won’t even pretend that I’m coming at this without any kind of baggage. Kitty Hawk has dug themselves into a hole with me over a good many kits, and it will take a strong showing on their part to redeem themselves. At the same time…my interactions with GWH kits have also left me less impressed that I’d anticipated.

There will be videos. Duh.

Efforts will be made to align steps for direct comparison. The engineering of these two kits is rather different in places. But to the greatest extent possible, I will try to build like elements side-by-side. So you can directly compare the cockpits, for example, or the gear bays or engines or pylons and armaments.

Conflation will be met with condescension and censoring. I’m done back-and-forthing with Dunning-Kruger types who can’t understand the basic idea that a model kit is a physical thing that comes in a box, and what is in that box can and should be evaluated independent of a builder’s skillset. Kits, on their own, can certainly be good and bad. Can a modeler turn a shitty kit into something impressive? Yes. But it’s still a shitty kit. If you just can’t deal with this, don’t be surprised to find your comment removed.

Initial Impressions

Last night I cracked the boxes and took a first initial tour through both kits. What did I make of them?

Kitty Hawk

• The decision to mold the wings separately from the fuselage is annoying. I’m guessing this is related to size limitations of their injection molding machines or something, because it’s not exactly a new thing. Revell’s F-15E has the wings molded with the fuselage.
• Detail looks nice, but nothing you haven’t seen before. Flash is also an issue in places (like the cockpit aperture or intake lip).
• The cockpit has a floor!
• Cockpit detail is…serviceable. Call it maybe on par with Tamiya’s F-14. Far, far better than Academy’s bullshit with their F-4s, but well back of what’s possible, too.
• Yo dawg, Kitty Hawk heard you like ordnance. Jesus. There are four massive sprues chock full of weird Russian armaments. They look good enough.
• The resin details are nice. The drooped exhausts look solid, but have a slightly rough feel to them. The tires…the hubs are gorgeous, but there is some shoddiness on the treads. The best part IMO is the seated pilot, who may find his way into the cockpit. I’m sure Becker will be over the moon.
• The decals are flat. Like, dead flat. WTF. That’s a new one.
• The cockpit IP and sidewall decals can fuck right off. It’s nice to have decal overlays for these modern cockpits, to provide color for the various switches and stencils. But Kitty Hawk has seen fit to put them on a blue background that’s supposed to represent the cockpit color. FUCK YOU. Put the cockpit decals on a clear background, and then there’s no need to match paint, or have mismatched shit going on.

Overall, it looks like a mostly solid kit, with some red flags here and there.

Great Wall Hobby

• The sewerface detail on the GWH -35 is staggering. From the instrument panel coaming to the wheel hubs to the flap hinges, this kit is just dripping with gorgeous surface details. The only places that seem to fall a bit flat are the stabilators, where the detail seems a bit shallow or washed out, and a small strip of canopy framing that seems similar.
• The cockpit is among the most detailed I’ve seen in 1/48, and GWH includes decal overlays on a clear background, as nature intended.
• Ordnance is limited to air-to-air missiles only. Boo.
• The amount of little details included are just amazing. Wiring harnesses for the gear bays. Mirrors for the canopy.
• The engineering of this kit is super thoughtful. The wings are molded with the fuselage. The intake/engine covers are molded as single, long pieces. The main gear struts are designed in such a way that you install just the base of the strut early on, and then slot in the rest of the strut later on. Very convenient.
• Decals look gorgeous, but the schemes are uninspiring. They’re all the current “how many shades of blue-gray can we use?” scheme. I’d love to have some other options.

Overall, this kit is extremely impressive on the sprues – probably the single best looking kit out of the box that I’ve seen since Tamiya’s big Corsairs. Certainly the most impressive jet – and yes I’ve seen AMK’s MiG-31. It’s too soon to tell if the fit is as good as the detail and engineering, but I’m hopeful.

Round 1 – Fight!

Okay, so now it’s off to actually start work on these two kits. Stay tuned for more!

Over the past few days, someone over on LSP has been making ad hominem attacks on me. Nothing new there. You create anything on the internet and you’re going to attract detractors, especially if they involve opinions, or, apparently, expletives.

But…I had a few minutes this morning while enjoying my coffee and figured I’d respond, only to turn around a minute later and find the thread gone.

This evening, I saw another thread asking where the first thread had gone, and again, the same attacks and assumptions, albeit in summarized form. By the time I found five minutes to respond and hit post, however, the thread had been locked.

As a Sisyphean farce in miniature, I find it pretty amusing. But since I already had one reply swallowed by the forum black hole today, I see no reason to let the other go to waste, so I’m posting it below.

——————————————

1 – I’m completely fine with opening the other thread up. It’s frankly rather annoying to reply and then turn around and the thread is gone.

2 – Offended? LOL nope. It’s entirely possible to object to things without being offended.

3 – The accusations (made again in this thread) of dishonesty and personal vendettas are pretty serious things to sling at someone. I’m not sure how a build review, with every single issue captured on video for all the world to see, can be dishonest. I’m not sure how subjective opinions drawn from said build experience can be dishonest. How can one even have a dishonest opinion? Don’t arrive at the same conclusions as I do? That’s fine. It’s a multi-faceted hobby, and in addition to everything that goes into a model build, we all have our own likes, dislikes and preferences to boot.

4 – The personal vendetta thing is nothing but personal assumption. Yes, I hold a very skeptical view of Kitty Hawk. One born from experience with a number of their kits. Sloppy, unforced errors happen to really annoy me. Because they could be fixed with another few days of QA.

Kitty Hawk has the ability to put out really good kits. The AH-1Z is an example of that. The wings of the Su-17 are an example of that. Probably about 50% of the Su-35 is an example of that. But then they go and kneecap themselves by forgetting to cut notches for the gear doors, putting sprue gates right on the junction of a connecting tab or whatever.

Calling them on those is not a vendetta. It’s a wish that they would do a better job. Because they show at times that they can, and because they put out rather interesting subjects that I would love to not have to avoid.

5 – Yes, my blog and youtube channel are safe zones for expletives. No, that does not make them x-rated. Nor is it clickbaity. It’s a release and a choice. Made by me, for me. It may rub some people the wrong way. But…tough.

6 – Come to think of it, I do take offense to one thing said about me in the original thread – that I swear at my compressor. I absolutely do not. I tell it to shut up.

Have a great weekend.