I'm a huge fan of the Area 88 ova from 1985. The high quality plane animation is nice to look at. And the tone and setpieces have inspired the Ace combat games I also like very much. Since I'm such a fan It's only natural that I would want to build a model based on the main characters plane. Well one of them atleast. In the ova there are 3 main planes The F-8, F-5 and this one. I chose the F-20 because I think that it has the best color scheme. The little bits of blue on the sides make it look better to my eyes. The base model is Hasegawas basic 1/72 F-20. They also made a special Area 88 version with the correct decals in the box, but that one is out of print and also more expensive. So I would build mine out of the basic version and print my own decals. I started working on this kit by printing the decals, the most important ones were the unicorns on the tail fin. I Looked up references from the internet and screenshots from the ova. I made the decals in inkscape and printed them on clear decal paper. Since my decal paper was clear and the tail fin was dark blue, I would have to come up with a way to get a white background for the decal. For this, I printed out a blank version of the decal that had just the outlines. I would paint the tail fin white, put on the outline decal and then use it as a guide to paint the tail fin, while leaving the decal area white. My printer is a little broken and it prints magenta a little lower than the other colors. I printed one version with the decals horizontally which left the red color shifted under the decal. Then later, I realized that I could have printed the decal vertically, which would have made the shift less noticeable, since the stripes on the decal would run parallel to the shift. I sacrifised a few more inches of my precious decal paper and got a better looking version made. I learned a better way to print decals in the future. I doubt that there is significant overlap between people who use decal paper and people who own broken printers, but this decal mishap served as a lesson an a much more universal thing. Remember to weigh your options carefully and not rush things. After the decals were made, the rest of the build would follow a typical model plane assembly formula. I build the cockpit first, glued the hull together and brushed on the primer. The white wasn't easy to apply with a paintbrush, but I managed to get satisfying results by building up to pure white from a progressively lighter shades of gray. Next up was the outline decals and masking. I managed paint the tail fin but I really should have used a smaller brush for the decal outlines, I guess that's another lesson to remember next time. After painting the blue, I brushed some gloss varnish on the tail fin and other places that would have decals on them. Most of the decals went on without a problem, but the tail fin decal was very large and unwieldy. It ended looking not so great, so if I need a large decal again sometime, I'll cut it up and apply it in smaller more manageable pieces. After the decals I put gloss varnish on the whole model. The next day, I applied a wash to the model. I ended up accidentally scrubbing the varnish off of the right wing and almost ruining the paint. I decided to cut my losses and leave the wing as is instead of risking ruining the paint. I had planned to have the model displayed from the left anyway. After the wash I applied a final matte coat to the model and glued all the pieces in place. I put it on my self on display, but something seemed off about it. It looked great while I was building it. But on my self somethig seemed to be missing. If I had to guess, it's because I didnt install the fuel tanks or weapon pylons, so the underside seemed kind of bare. It looks good from above or below, but at eye level it doesn't look it's best. The tanks are white and only a few pieces anyway, so installing them later is not a problem. I would still rather figure out a way to make the model look better by finding the ideal display angle. I'm not a huge fan on messing with projects after they're completed. By obsessing over details and trying to get every single little thing right, you seem to always forget to actully have fun building the model. And that's the important part. More important than clean panel lines and a smooth paintjob. Even if I seem to forget it sometimes.
Pictures from the build
I built this model in December 2020. I took some pictures while I was building it
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First I tested that the decal is the right size with just regular paper. Here you can see that the red is offset slightly
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After the cockpit was done I glued the hull together
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Oulines for the tail fin decal
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Masking tape for the blue stripes. I decided to go without the small extra stripes. Because I was building the OVA version and I didn't know how I would paint the small stripes
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Painted on the blue and some gray around the cockpit
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| The tapes are removed. It came out a bit messy |
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| Tail fin without the decal. I put on the right side first. Because I was planning to display it from the left. And if something went terribly wrong, I would know to avoid it on the Left side |
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Tail Decal is done. I laso painted a bit of silver on the engine
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Parts are ready for the clear coat and assembly
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