Hasegawa 1/200 All Nippon Airways Boeing 787-9

[Nick L]

Finally finished this after it spent its requisite year or so on the shelf of doom...

 

The Hasegawa 787 kits are really great though - no big issues (apart from self-inflicted ones, of course) in assembly. The one thing I really disliked about the design of this kit (which applies to lots of other airliner models too) is how the blade antennas are molded into one half of the fuselage, making it a pain to clean up the centerline join without breaking them off. (Of course, I did - thankfully there are spares included!) For some reason, the antenna on the bottom of the fuselage is designed differently (with a hole in the fuselage for the antenna) - if the rest of them could have been done that way it would have been much less nerve-wracking to glue them on afterwards.

 

Painting is usually where things go quickly south for me, and so it was for this model too. After botching my first attempt I couldn't work up the energy to work on this again until a few weeks ago. After getting my momentum back, though, it was easy to fix what had gone wrong and finish painting everything else.

 

This was also my first experience with making my own decals - the "Inspiration of JAPAN" and "Tomodachi" titles weren't included on the kit decal sheet (despite the box art showing the real thing having both!). While I was at it, I also made a few extra details like landing lights so I wouldn't have to paint them on - I know I'm not to be trusted with a brush anymore. Thankfully, everything went well, and these certainly won't be my last home-made decals. The kit decals are good too, with the only issue being that the big stripe decals didn't quite meet up on top of the tailcone, necessitating some touch-up. After hitting everything with lots of Future I applied some pastels and acrylic wash weathering, and then glued everything together (including the aforementioned antennas - ugh).

 

Anyway, on to the photos!

 

 

The 787 hanging out with some friends... (since this is a model of a Japanese aircraft, I couldn't resist...)

 

Thanks for looking!
Nick

[Alpha Delta 210]

Great result and well done with the home-made decals. I still can't decide whether the Dreamliner is handsome or not!

[Turbofan]

Hi Nick,

This is a fantastic result, I wouldn't have guessed it was 1/200 more 1/144. Really nice finish no sign of any of your previous problems. With regard to the moulded antennae I always take them all off before I start then you have a nice large area the work on rather than trying to avoid delicate details. At the end once everything is finished I glue them back with UHU or PVA.

Very impressed with your homemade decals, did you use a laser printer or inkjet?

Cheers,

Ian

[Nick L]

Thanks guys!

 

10 hours ago, Turbofan said:

 

Very impressed with your homemade decals, did you use a laser printer or inkjet?

 

I use a laser printer - I'd always heard good things about lasers vs. inkjet (not just for decal making but for printing in general).

[Ridgeline]

The issues you mentioned aren't obvious to me either, and your custom decals look excellent! Nice job!

[keefr22]

Yep, I can't see any signs of problems either - just a beautifully finished Dreamliner!

 

Lovely job!

 

Keith

[Nick L]

Thanks guys, I really appreciate it (makes me feel better too! )