Nostalgia and Model Building

I remember when Revell’s A-20 jumped off the shelf at me in (when was it?) 1970 (or thereabouts). Old Revell kits fill me with nostalgia like nothing else. The same feeling Brits have for Airfix I have for Revell. So when I saw this old warrior going to peanuts on eBay I had to buy it.

The Jack Leynnwood painting is the mutt’s nuts. It’s just… I dunno… bitchin’. No actual aircraft ever looked that wicked in the history of wicked-looking airplanes. If the Nazis has seen that they would have surrendered on the spot.

The challenge is, of course, in the paint job. As well as the inaccurate kit, the funny looking aft fuselage and the under-sized cowlings. But mostly, the paint-job is what makes it good. I’ve experimented around from time to time and finally found a combination of colors and paint types that will allow me to make something out of this. No, I’m not going to build an interior for it or correct the funny fuselage– I really don’t care about that. I’m all about the paint.

Here’s an experiment that turned out well. I took an old FROG Ju-88 and painted in in RAF colors and then added a home-brew of gloss Tamiya acrylic, to make the “mottle.”

The stuff is super self-leveling so it just smooths right out as it dries. The problem with brushpainting this scheme is that the “blobs” of “desert siesta” turn out all blobby and brushmarks. Believe me–I tried and failed to get a “proper” paint job using all matte colors from Testors. But this new method might just work.

But before I start on this, I’ll have to determine if I really want to use the correct RAF dark earth and dark green. Look at this image.

That’s harvest gold and Yankee Doodle forest green. That’s My Gal Back Home’s Golden Hair and my favorite weed green. That’s AMERICA in bold colors. Not wimpy old dark earth and dark green. What’s with all the “dark” anyway? Buncha downers. I’m thinking I’ll mix custom colors for the whole thing.

Sometimes, I would much rather have a model that reflects something other than “realism.” Sometimes realism isn’t appropriate. For example:

I’d much rather have a P-51 that looks like my childhood sweetheart than an “accurate” one painted olive drag. There’s no heart in that.

While we’re discussing Revell, here’s a cool flyer that was in the Havoc kit.

These Leynnwood box paintings are EPIC. The Pennsylvania is shelling Alaska in the that last one. We had to take part of it back from Japan. Looks COLD!

Also, count me in for the Revell Record Club!