Here is my last build for the year, Hasagawa's nice A-4M Skyhawk in 1/48.
The kit:
The Skyhawk is one of my favorite jets. It is an all-around good looking airframe, and I like how it is so much smaller than many of its contemporaries. I built this one, of the "Black Sheep" squadron, from VMA-214 based out of Iwakuni Air Base in 1977, mostly because I liked the black sheep insignia but also because I really didn't want to do the markings featured on the boxtop art, colorful though it is.
Paint is a mix of Model Master enamels and Tamiya paints, with the exterior being decanted Tamiya spray paint insignia white and light gray. Weathering is Flory dark dirt wash, Tamiya weathering compounds and ground up pastels.
Right away I will point out that I rank Hasagawa kits as very good. Detailing and fit are high points. But Hasagawa's decals are often times hot garbage, and this one is a fine example of that. And Hasagawa has that annoying habit of not including ordinance, insisting that you buy their add-on kits for that. This release includes the drop tanks but nothing else. The Hobby Boss Corsair II that I built along side this one includes a bunch of ordinance, but unfortunately I could find nothing from that kit that was carried on the Skyhawk, at least per the many reference photos I looked at. So my Skyhawk is not a heavily loaded bird.
You'll notice the U.S. insignia along the starboard side is broken. The decal went on fine, but the missing part ripped off when I was airbrushing on a flat coat. Decals had been on for a number of days by this point, and were settled down with decal setting solution and were covered with a good coat of Future as well. No idea how or why the decal blew off as it did.
The rudder decal was true garbage. It cracked apart under setting solution on the ridges that cover the rudder. I opted to leave it as is.
So this represents my last build of 2017. I have reached a modeling exhaustion point and need a break, so I won't return to my bench until some time in January. I did notice that all of my builds this year were U.S. or Allied aircraft. I've decided that next year I will focus on Axis warbirds, and even have a tentative build list.