Minicraft EC-121 Warning Star, Part I

I picked up Minicraft's 1/144 scale version of the Lockheed EC-121 "Warning Star" because the Constellation is a great looking aircraft and the radome and paintjob on the Navy version looked so cool on the box.

Now, I haven't built a model in years -- and even then, I'd just slap the thing together, dab some paint on it, then stick the decals on -- but several months ago, I started picking up some modeling magazines: Fine Scale Modeler, Military in Scale, etc. So now, armed with a little bit of knowledge and grand visions of being a master modeler, I buy the Warning Star... *sniff* What's that smell? Disaster?

I get the kit home, and the first thing I do is start dry-fitting the thing together. I should mention that I also picked up a sprue clipper to get the parts off the sprue, and an X-Acto knife to clean 'em up -- just like the pros. I should also mention that exactly none of the parts fit well and there was very little detail on the model -- no panel lines at all, except for the flaps, ailerons, and two way oversized doors. This kit puts the ugh back in ugly. Most glaringly, the body halves were prominently mismatched and the wings had huge gaps where they attached to the body -- same for the tail fins. So naturally, I decide to start gluing it all together.

When I was a kid, I used to use the orange and white tube of gooey Testor's plastic cement. I couldn't find a tube here in Singapore. For all I know, it's banned because the kids sniff it to get high. So, I picked up some Tamiya extra thin cement because I read in those stupid modeling magazines it's better to just hold the pieces together and run this thin cement over the seams with a brush "and let the capillary action draw the cement into the seams."

Don't bother. Go find the gooey glue. Maybe if the pieces had fit tightly it'd be a different story, but stuff just kept coming unglued and falling apart. It was really brittle. So now I have the body and main wings together (just barely), and it looks like crap. Gaps and mismatches everywhere. But am I discouraged? No way. I've been reading those modeling magazines. I just need some putty and sandpaper. I went with the Tamiya putty and a variety pack of Tamiya 400, 600, and 1000 sandpaper (or "finishing abrasives", if you want to get all snooty).

I've never used putty before, but I figured I needed some kind of applicator. So I used a sprue. Don't use a sprue. Later on, I bought a bag of popsicle sticks, and that worked pretty well... but that's for the future. For now, I used a sprue and when I was finished, I had something that looked so ugly and was so brittle, I just threw it all back in the box in disgust. In fact, I let Blur Jr. play with it until it eventually shed the wingtip fuel tanks and the wings came right off the body.

The end... Hah! No, the modeling bug bit me pretty good. Obviously, Minicraft just sucks, and I merely needed something more finely crafted to showcase my awesome modeling talents...

links: technorati