Big Beautiful Doll Mustang in 1/32

[ghodges]

But not the one you normally see!

This is the 1/32 Revell P-51D-5 early bubbletop Mustang before the fin filet was added. This was the way the kit was designed so there was no need to cut or convert anything. This Revell of Germany kit is pretty good with very adequate detailing OOTB, though I added some goodies to it. Although not as detailed as the 1/32 Tamiya Mustang, it's also much less expensive; so if you want to build an early Mustang you get a lot of bang for your buck.

That's the kit cockpit floor, but I added a set of resin Barracuda radios on top of the gas tank.. That's the Eduard "Look" prepainted main IP designed for the Revell kit, which is a drop fit as is once the fuselage is assembled.

This is the Barracuda resin seat painted and decaled. The armor backing and control stick in the pic above is also from the Barracuda seat set.

The only resin additions to the cockpit sides were the throttle quad and the trim wheel... the rest is the Revell kit OOTB. Although Revell does supply some cockpit stencils, I used a more extensive set of Barracuda cockpit stencils decals. They go a long way in adding some eye-candy to the interior! I also added Barracuda resin tires in place of the kit ones too.

On to the finished pics!

The fuselage was painted with Alclad Aluminum and the wings with Alclad Dark Aluminum, both applied over gloss black enamel. The nose checks and the prop spinner were masked and painted. The markings for the earlier version of Lander's Big Beautiful Doll came from a Life Like sheet that does all 6 of his planes; this one being the 2nd of the group and the last one before the more famous black/white checked nose was applied to his planes.

All in all this is a great kit with only a couple of finicky areas to watch (leading edge gun panels and the bottom scoop assembly) with good fit overall except in the areas mentioned. It doesn't really need any aftermarket parts unless you're just a detail fanatic or perhaps looking to upgrade to be a bit more competitive. The few kit decals I used (stencils) worked quite well, so I expect the rest would be fine too.

Comments, critiques, and questions welcome as always! Cheers!

 

Gil 

[Ron Bell]

Beautiful, as always. What do you use to mask over the Alclad? I'm always nervous about masking over metalics of any sort. 

[ghodges]

I use Tamiya tape generally, but also the blue 3M tape on occasion....though I'm more careful with that since it has a stickier adhesive. I've found the Alclad to be very good at standing up to masking as compared to the AK Metallics, which seem more prone to have "tape marks" even if it doesn't peel up. That said, I've also learned to "peel back" the tape when removing it instead of lifting it up during removal.

 

Gil 

[Mark Deliduka]

Wow, that is indeed a "Big Beautiful Doll"! Way to go Gil, you have another brilliant masterpiece on your shelf!