Monogram 1/48 B-26B WIP- Completed 7/18

[speedgraflex]

Your work here is incredibly inspired—by following your gut, you improved the kit many levels beyond any I have seen, and you did so with a hobby knife and sheets of plastic. In a real sense this is a Master Class in scratchbuilding in addition to being a build documentary. The degree of detailing is masterful as well. All signs of a close-researched project, as well as a project close to its maker’s heart. The crew of the B-26 would be grateful for your mindset here... all in quarter scale, too. Plus, I still believe that the outer shape of the aircraft designed by Monogram is more truthful because the men who designed the forms put themselves organically into the plastic. I may be going out there with this, but it seems to me that these mass produced kits held more universal appeal because the world was analog.

[Stikpusher]

The 1975 thru 1986 1/48 aircraft kits by Monogram were the best out there at that time in that scale. They were at the top of their game. A few kits that came out post Revell merger such as the A-6 were on the same level. If you compare them to the kits of everybody else was releasing in that scale at that time, they had the edge in quality overall. The other companies had to step up their games. Some did, namely Tamiya and Hasegawa, but most did not. Other new companies came along, and most eventually surpassed them. But in my eye, these kits set the standards to follow, at least as far as the level of detail inside and out was supposed to be. And all for a very affordable price. Nowadays I cringe at the cost of new tool kits of the same size and scale. At least for most of them. I could go on and on, but save it for another time and thread.
Thank you for your kind words about my Marauder. It still remains one of my top builds yet.

[speedgraflex]

Hear, Hear! I completely agree. The Monogram kits look better and genuinely carry the shape of the aircraft. I think the effects of heading towards accuracy as a goal diminished this achievement and may have contributed to the diminished level of overall involvement. Plus, I still feel that building the tub of a tank or an armored vehicle wall piece by piece is just not how I want to spend my time. Hullo, Dragon! The Frog was such a good palette cleanser after all that unnecessary fitting. I still plan to do a vintage group build here even if only a few join. There is so much to learn from having to improvise. You improvised all of the interior details! Off the charts! You’re an Ace.

[jkim]

Nice work on the Marauder, Carlos! I remember as a kid, in the late 70's and early 80's, I was really attracted to the Revell kits, mostly because of their fantastic box art. If I remember correctly, Monogram was emerging as the leader in accuracy and detail but the packaging was less appealing to me, plain white boxes featuring photos of the built model.

[Stikpusher]

In the 70s most companies switched from painted artwork on their boxes to photos of the built model. Some against a photo backdrop, some sort of related items, and some against a plain background. Tamiya was the only one who really stuck with painted artwork, although they went away from dramatic paintings to paintings of just the kit subject on a plain background.

[speedgraflex]

I thought this switch was due to consumer groups pressuring toy companies to unilaterally use photos to represent what was inside the box...?

[Stikpusher]

I believe that was part of it. But it was not 100% across the board. All of Monograms big models stayed with painted box art during this time, and most ship models did from all the different companies did as well. By the late 70s, Monogram had gone back to painted artwork on their 1/48 aircraft kits.