Yeah baw HELLCAT!

[BlackSheep214]

Not to stir the pot, but Airfix is coming out with a 1/32 scale Hellcat next month...

[Stikpusher]

I know that Airfix has a 1/24 F6F in the works and due out soon. A 1/32 kit is news...

[KennyX]

Thank you, gentlemen!

I terms of that Airfix kit, I remember even that story broke a few months ago. It’s pretty exciting, what they’ve done with that kit, and I’m definitely going to purchase one. From what I saw it looked great!

[Stuart]

It does look nice.. (not sure about that skin though )

[KennyX]

The stressed skin thing wow’d a lot of people.

For me personally, it doesn’t appeal to me asthetically in the Hellcat’s case. But then, the panels on the fuselage of this aircraft don’t particularly appeal to me either. Thin. Vertical. I don’t like them at all. This is just my subjective opinion of the asthetics, you understand. It’s a great airplane. One of the best (also my opinion). And other people might find that they feel differently about it and that’s totally cool. I’m not criticizing them, this is just me and how I see things... and I’m sure that as I carry-our this project, I’ll come to like it. That has indeed happened to me before. There’s something about the process of building it and working out how to paint it that forms a fondness for the subject for me in my mind.

And hey, at the end of the day, that’s stressed skin sure is one Hell if a cool advancement. The guy who wrote the Modeling the Zero book I bought actually did this by hand on a 1:32 Zeke and holy cow Stewart, it looked awesome.

[Stuart]

No I know what you mean.

It's a really nice bit of advancement in a moulding sense but to my mind it's not needed. I don't know if it's just this build, or this lighting but it really looks overdone to my eyes, to the extent that it just detracts from the rest of the aircraft.

[KennyX]

That’s my issue with it too. But you’re right- it could just be the paint and lighting making it look that way.

Hehe guess there’s only one way to find out

[jkim]

I don't like the stressed skin effect either. I think it is pretty cool that model manufacturers are going to that level of detail but the effect is so strong here as to be distracting. Felt the same way about the 1/24 Airfix Typhoon in terms of surface detail.

[Stuart]

That’s my issue with it too. But you’re right- it could just be the paint and lighting making it look that way.

Hehe guess there’s only one way to find out

Yes that's true - I guess the only way to know for sure would be to buy one and build it. Very unlikely to happen though - I've gone right off Airfix in the past few years.

I don't like the stressed skin effect either. I think it is pretty cool that model manufacturers are going to that level of detail but the effect is so strong here as to be distracting. Felt the same way about the 1/24 Airfix Typhoon in terms of surface detail.

Glad I'm not the only one that thinks that way.

It is however a pretty cool choice for Airfix and I suspect it'll sell well.

[KennyX]

John and Stewart,

I was thinking maybe one could subdue that effect with altering the paint color. Perhaps lightening it “for scale” as it were. But here’s the issues at least for me- it’s 1:32, and I’ve come to really like that NAVY Blue color and I’d be disinclined to lighten it at all just to take attention away from some surface details. The aircraft would end up looking a bit overdone weatheringwise, I fear.

If the airplane was all solid intermediate blue? No problem! That color, at least when mixed with Tamiya paints, looks lovely lightened up. That NAVY Blue? No, I can’t see that working.