Just a quick progress update, before I am heading to Prague for some sightseeing of this beautiful city after a looong, long time, meeting a friend of mine (Jakub, creator of most detailed reference page for Desert Storm modellers) and hoping to score some bargain modelling deals (my apartment is just a few minutes away from MPM store).
So, decals!
I was planning on using Model Alliance decals for this bird but two things happened. I accidentally spilled a drop of Future on the decal sheet, rendering some decals unusable. However I decided to skip them anyway, as there were just some wingwalk markings that weren’t always used. So I decide to use another one for test and to my horror, the result can be seen above. I know these are older decals but I haven’t seen this in ages – as I started to slide the decal from the backing paper, a film, perhaps a glue, started to move with the decal, breaking up into smaller pieces. I couldn’t clean the decal in anyway, so I’ve applied it to the surface anyway, just to see what will happen. That glue, or whatever it was, turned white and as you can see on the photo, made white specks all over the surface. Knowing I could not rectify this easily, I’ve decided for a plan B and ordered ALPS printed HaHen decals, made in Germany.
Luckily, plan B is now working as advertised and decals are a treat to work with. They come precoated, so you don’t need to fix them. You have however cut them from the sheet as close to the print as possible which takes a bit more of time but they are very thin and consequently settle down really nicely. Colours however are a bit translucent, which is the case especially with white – white circle with an anchor on intakes are two decals overlapping for better opacity.
Shot from another angle. Some slight silvering appeared but since I haven’t used any decal softeners yet, I am pretty sure with another coat of Future, it’ll disappear. Hopefully I’ll be able to finish decaling next week and start weathering soon afterwards. It is funny, how a project, which I wanted to build quickly, is taking me so much time. Also I have three imminent projects for the Scale Aircraft Magazine, that I have to start next week – a barrel, a gas station and a cock 😉
VVS modelling 