Yep, it’s not armor. Always liked the P47. The Mustang seems to get all the glory with its sleek graceful lines. Almost elegant. The P47, especially the Razorback has no pretensions of beauty. No this rather unglamorous if not somewhat awkward looking bird looks like it means to hurt something and is looking for a fight.
The Tamiya kit OOB. Easy carefree build. No hassle construction. Some seams to fill but that’s almost a given with aircraft. Used canopy masks to make painting easier. Preshaded with black. Very lightened Tamiya OD topside, Tamiya Neutral Grey on the belly. Really like how the painting turned out. So far so good. If I could have stopped here it would have been a near perfect build. The decals ruined it. Doing all the stencils was tedious and time consuming but not too bad. The national insignia was a nightmare. The stars on the fuselage are 3 pieces which do not mate up well. The thick decals also did not respond to Solvaset. The stencils were fine but the blue absolutely refused to soften and conform to the panel lines. Also had trouble with the canopy. It popped off after everything was painted. Put it back on as best as I could but… Overall it’s a 3 footer. Thanks for looking.
Thanks for the tip. Trouble after all was assembled and painted was getting everything squared up again without ruining the surrounding area. Next time around I’ll know better. Enjoyable build despite the decal and canopy issues. First aircraft I’ve done in 35+ years.
Also the front windscreen needs to be solid to fuselage. Depending on airframe the sliding canopy doesn’t have to be seamless. Especially prop aircraft most don’t need to be closed for inflight. This might be helpful in future builds if things are not lining up.
Every once in a blue moon when I burn out on armor, I’ll dig out one of the old Monogram 1\48 planes and build it strictly OOB as a palate cleanser. I don’t correct or detail anything, just enjoy the build. Zen modeling at it’s primitive finest.
I do something similar. I build one of their old Navy planes with landing gear the fold and wings that fold and tail hooks that move, etc and when done I give it to one of the neighborhood kids to play with and prove that you can have fun with models other than as a static display.
Wow, fantastic job. You’ve literally inspired me to try an aircraft model. I have several kits in my stash, but have been hesitant. Thank you so much for sharing your wonderful and talented work.
