Hasegawa Crusher Joe fighter
Project start 2021-08-05 22:00
A while back, I needed some padding for an order from Japan, and I though this
critter looked tasty.
Now, before you ask, I've never seen, let alone read, any of the Crusher Joe
books or anime, so I don't know the first thing about it.
Upon arrival, I found the kit to be just a bit too clunky to truly inspire.
However, it seems to be Hasegawa's entry into the no paint, no glue, but still
a decent model arena, and that can mean only one thing: it's blitzfodder
Now, I may be the only one here (but I doubt it) that still has nightmares about
horrible metallic grey plastic. The instructions indicate the grey parts should
be just that. So why, this one time it would have actually been good, wasn't this
sprue done in old fashioned metallic? Oh well, I have a airbrush..
On the flip side, the inclusion of clear and tinted canopies is nice, as are the
nicely detailed figures.
I'll be doing this one in bare plastic and spot painting mode, as the kit is clearly
intended to be built. We'll see if Hasegawa can do as good as Bandai for this stuff.
As usual, I'll be starting very late this evening with a quick blast of varnish,
primer, and in this case metallic grey, and then burning through 8+ hours of blitz time snoring.
2021-08-05 22:00
As said, just some very minor removal of stubs and gates, followed by gunmetal, matt varnish,
and grey primer to get set for the real job tomorrow. Also dipped the tinted canopy.
2021-08-06 9:53
I've painted up the frame on the tinted canopy. In retrospect, this was probably one of
the easier canopies to mask and airbrush, but I'm kind of stuck on using the hairy stick
for window frames, and didn't even think about it.
My late night airbrush and rattlecan work came out pretty much as expected, to my relief;
I really was too tired to do this properly, so some luck involved.
2021-08-06 10:50
The rear ends of the fins on the wings need to be the same metallic grey as the engine
areas, but splitting them up and using different colours of plastic was obviously a
problem, so masking and airbrushing it was.
This, and the canopy frames, is the last part where I needed to use slow curing paints,
so from now on drying times, and thus sequence, will become less relevant.
2021-08-06 12:39
Not a lot to show for my work these past hours, just a bunch of partial sub-assemblies,
but that's how it goes.
Most of the detail colours on the interior are provided as decals, but they don't like me.
Quite stiff, and quite prone to braking up.
There's a lot of different colours on the figures, and even acrylics need some time to dry,
so I'll be doing little dabs of paint on them all through the day.
Hasegawa have some catching up to do if they want to get the level of Bandai with this sort
of kits. I've already had to use cement on some smallish parts, and I actually had to paint
the inside of the cockpit tub :roll: Not even remotely an issue for a traditional kit of
course, but I don't think that's what they were shooting for. I also expect to be doing a
lot of touch-up, where differently coloured edges show. I just hope that will be limited
to gunmetal; colour matching the white or blue would get very tricky indeed.
2021-08-06 14:47
It think this is called "progress"..
Sadly, not all parts fit as tightly as they should, and to really make this kit
work requires cement and filler; the parts just aren't precise enough to work well
enough to please the more critical modeller. And that would of course mean painting
the whole thing as well, wiping out the advantage of pre-coloured parts. Don't get me
wrong, it's a good kit, but it fails to accomplish what it set out to do.
2021-08-06 17:21
Construction is complete, except for the canopy of course, and all that remains is a
pile of decals.
The figures are almost done. They're an odd pair; Joe is just a fairly bland, almost
generic pilot figure. Talos on the other hand, is a remarkably well made figure,
especially in this scale.
2021-08-06 18:49
That's a wrap.
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