1/48 Tamiya F4F4 Wildcat - weekend build 

Gallery Article by by David Campbell on Nov 6 2003

 

When I moved to Louisiana from California, I went through something of a culture shock, and my modeling pretty much came to a halt. I had a pile of half built kits with me, but wanted to do something fast and relatively easy to get out of my funk. I had a Tamiya Wildcat about, and chose it for a speedbuild. I typically build helicopters, but AMS always sets in and this was a better choice just to get the juices flowing again. What you see here is a basic weekend speed build, strictly out of the box, with kit decals.

 

Click on images below to see larger images

The kit was preshaded with black before the base of Navy blue grey and light grey was applied, then individual panel lines were "burned in" with lightened paint. An oil wash and pastels completed the kit. The kit decals were awful, nothing seems to work well to settle them, but this is a 100% OOB buildup. I chose to paint the tail stripes since the decal just wouldnt work. 

If you're ever in a funk, and just want to break out, these little Tamiya kits are great! You can check out my other work at Hover Lover's Model Page at  http://www.angelfire.com/ca4/hlmp/home.html

by David Campbell

      

Photos and text © by by David Campbell