Phantome

This is great news, although unlikely it would be cool if they reissued the A or F versions in a white box, to keep it in the market for longer. The A version is the only non-Aussie one I am missing (got one of each FB, E and F)

Sorry, it came across as I was objecting to your statement which was evidently ironic. I was just trying to add to it!

Literally every time I criticize Revell's marketing decisions (mainly over all their missed opportunities to make different variants of kits) I get a flood of indignant replies from people here basically saying that companies like Revell must know something we don't. These, I should add, are the same people that go ballistic over a missing rivet. So basically, modelling companies have genius marketing teams, and idiot engineers :P

Yes, Vallejo is acrylic, water-based. Their Metal Color range is very good though, sprays right off the bottle and has a similarly fine texture as AS-12. I am not a huge fan of their Aluminum color, however, as it tends to streak quite easily when spraying over larger areas; decanted AS-12 is much more forgiving. However, for panel shading, they are excellent and like I said, you can use Duraluminum and Dark Aluminum for progressively darker shades, or White Aluminum for a lighter one. Old Citadel Chainmail was also a great color for darkening NMF panels, shame the old formula paints are gone forever...

Great job on the NMF! I myself am a recent convert to decanted AS-12 and it is a life-changer. Sprays beautifully, very forgiving, dries quickly, and dries like rock. No primer needed either (it's basically a primer). If I am allowed a suggestion, if you don't want the hassle of mixing darker shades of AS-12, Vallejo's Metal Color range is really good and goes over AS-12 quite nicely. Duraluminum gives you a slightly darker shade and Dark Aluminum goes a bit darker still.

Awesome, awesome work! Your color toning is absolutely ace. And just enough weathering to look battered but not too much.

Surface and interior detail is nowhere near as good at their old Tornado. In fact, it's pretty terrible: deep panel lines, blocky cockpit interior, no rivets, etc. I found it to be quite a disappointment and yet for some reason few of the reviews seemed to be critical of it (I guess that's what happens when reviewers get free samples...) It's only claim to being the best is that the Italeri is even more appalling. But we really need a nice new modern Gripen from a company that has more consistency in its quality control than Revell which seems equally capable of producing a winner and a stinker back to back. http://www.themodellingnews.com/2015/06/grappling-with-gripen-building-revells.html

Great kit, built it last year myself. Having said that, I would recommend people get the Revell boxing. The Zvezda original lacks missile stencils which is quite a shocking omission. And the SM carries LOTS of missiles.

My jaw dropped at the winter camo. Fantastic! How did you do it? The detail on the Zvezda kit also is much better than Airfix's which still seems a bit toy-like in comparison despite the otherwise excellent build and paint scheme.

Barely anyone has replied... this is the greatest thing in 1/72 scale in ages. Literally 30 years later the Hasegawa kit has been replaced Hopefully the MSIP II will have all the bits and bobs to make an early C and also have some of the straight antennas so we can make Gulf War birds.

Academy. It's one of those cases where there's absolutely no contest. It is not entirely shake-and-bake though. The nose is a four-piece affair which can be tricky and there are some alignment issues as well. Depending on the variant you may also have to do some removing of bumps and filling of panel lines.

I just tested with a night intruder Hurricane I'm building and a light source. Putting it an angle in which the light source creates the exact same shadow from the stabilizer, a slight upward tilt of the port wing does lead to the light hitting the radiator, which would make it look brighter... but not as dramatic as on the pic. So maybe it is the case that Z's slightly different angle is the cause of the different radiator color. Who knows? Granted, this is 1:72 scale and using a lightbulb half a meter away, which clearly is not the same as a real aircraft being hit by sunlight millions of miles away

That's not a shadow. The aircraft are all angled identically. The shadow cast on the horizontal stabilizer is identical in all 4 aircraft which means the shadow on the radiator should follow a similar pattern. It is literally impossible for the sun shining on that radiator for Z (which would suggest the sun being more in the direction of the camera) while casting that shadow on the stabilizer (the sun being behind the aircraft)

Just to add to this, but it is my understanding that many (most?) pre-FY80 aircraft had their avionics bays painted white after undergoing maintenance. So it would be somewhat inaccurate to paint a modern F-15A with the original green-blue color.

If you're referring to 1/72 scale, that's perhaps because there is no decent and widely available GR.4 kit. Revell has not bothered with an update to their otherwise excellent GR.1 kit, much like they don't bother with new variants for most of their kits even when they would only need a handful of new pieces. Hasegawa had a one-off boxing that was ridiculously expensive. Airfix kit is a dinosaur. The aftermarket industry thinks it's more important to have 4 types of wheels for [insert obscure short-run kit]. But who am I to criticize their genius marketing people...

Mottling level: EXPERTEN! Awesome work

I thought they were not short run, but actually steel molds... but I'll take your word for it regarding fit since I haven't built any myself! Having said that, absolutely phenomenal work on your NMF Mustang. Loved the weathering on it (post-shading with smoke I presume?)

Thanks! I suspected that was the case.

In a nutshell: no nose weight needed? Seems at first glance that it's a natural tail sitter but the instructions don't mention the need for nose weight. I double checked the Revell rebox instructions and also no mention. Can any one of you who have built it chip in?

I'm a fan of the Academy, despite its inaccuracies. It looks good, has a nice interior, and has excellent fit. The Hasegawa kit has slightly inferior detail and is also not readily available. Having said that, one issue to note on the Academy kit that nobody seems to have mentioned is that the closed version of the early canopy has some fit issues: it's wider than the fuselage. The Malcolm Hood has perfect fit, however. I have not built the KP but it looks a bit over-engineered from what I see from the manual. I really don't want to spend 4-5 hours building a cockpit in 1/72 scale, and KP's small cockpit parts tend to be quite fiddly and with poor fit (I speak about the Bf 109s). Don't want to sound like I'm dissing KP, the 109s are lovely little kits otherwise (especially the Friedrichs)! I suppose the Mustangs are not too shabby aside from this.

It is in their newer releases. Every brand new Hase and Tamiya kit that I've bought in the last few years has had nice, white decals that don't yellow which makes me think they've changed their decal formulas circa 2010 or so. That same E18 kit, if bought today brand new, would most likely have perfect, white decals.

If you're not too pedantic about every little dial and knob, the GR.5 cockpit is vaguely similar to the GR.7/AV-8B+ except for the fact that the right-hand LCD was a less modern, circular map display. Also note that the RAF machines had the right LCD/map display with a slight lower offset than the left one, whereas the AV-8Bs were at the same height. It would be trickier to modify an early AV-8B since it only had one LCD.

Although Italeri inherited the ESCI molds, it has not repackaged any of the ESCI F-4s until quite recently with its F-4D/J kit. As such, the ESCI and Italeri F-4s are completely different beasts, the latter having raised panel lines. You can see the full history of the ESCI molds here: https://www.scalemates.com/kits/122492-esci-9027-f-4e-f-mc-donnell-douglas

BTW, here's how the Revell kit would look as a F-4E (the modeller cast the slotted stabilizers himself) if only Revell had bothered to mold just two extra pieces and thus cover the most widely produced Phantom ever built; or if the aftermarket community had any notion of what a market is. http://www.aircraftresourcecenter.com/Gal6/5201-5300/gal5265-F-4-Orsi/00.shtm

Oh and to add a gripe to my previous gripe, also scandalous that the resin community hasn't stepped in with what would be very simple and cheap Revell E and G conversion sets. Clearly there is a bigger market in resin tires for obscure variants of obscure aircraft! ;)