KOG7777

P-47 razorback P-38 Hellcat Hurricane Bf109 and/or Fw190

I'm disappointed in Hasegawa.... because they haven't done an updated 1/32 Hellcat, or a P-47D Razorback to go with their nice bubbletop, or a nice new Hurricane or P-38 series... (all things they have done in 1/48 already)

I did model in the 80s and 90s. Just not 1/32 aircraft. I was fiddling with space shuttles and saturn V rockets and cars and scifi stuff back then. Back then there was an entire aisle at my local Toys 'R' Us dedicated to model kits and supplies. I could get models and paints at my local drug store too. And I had 2 giant hobby shops plus some smaller ones in my neighborhood. All gone now. All of it. There's a few cheap kits at Michael's but nothing I'd considering worth buying anymore.

I guess we should remember that there are some younger modelers out there. And the hobby needs younger modelers to survive. Maybe a variety of marketing methods to cover different demographics wouldn't hurt. I'm under 40 so I consider myself a 'younger modeler'. I guess. I live in one of the top 10 largest cities in the USA (by population) and I have seen ALL of my local hobby shops close up shop. I now have to drive an hour away just to get supplies. And I was reading recently that my favorite paints, or at least a big chunk of them (the testors model master enamel military paints) are getting discontinued. I despair for my hobby. I may be able to get kits online, and I may have a big stash to keep me busy until the next ice age, but if I lose the ability to get supplies... all my kits become worthless plastic. I want this hobby to survive. So at this point I don't care who markets how, if it works.

I'm confused. It's a model of a 1940s WWII airplane. A great number of (American) WWII airplanes had scantily clad female noseart. Pinup art in general was popular in the 1940s. From artists like Gil Elvgren and similar. Why are we singling out Eduard as being infantile?

Just when I thought Kittyhawk had given up on prop kits from this time period. Will buy.

That's completely fine. I'm in no rush. Whenever the P-51 is out, I'll buy it. I still need to grab the Do335s, Meteor, B-25J Strafer, B-25H, and B-17E/F anyway. Speaking of B-25H, is it still in production? Or do I need to scramble and find one somewhere? I haven't seen it in stock at Spruebros or Pacific Coast in a while.

Is the Phantom scheduled before the early P-51 that was talked about before? Because I'm more interested in the P-51.

He was comparing modern resin (HpH) and modern injection molded plastic kits. He wasn't comparing modern plastic vs old plastic. I can't really recall THAT many 'esoteric' subjects released in plastic in the old days, other than a handful. Especially in larger scales. But it only makes sense that as modeling becomes a less and less mainstream hobby, and kits become more and more complex, and demands for accuracy get more and more intense, it will naturally make less and less sense for companies to release kits of subjects with limited appeal, which may also be hard to research if they are truly obscure. I only have so much space and budget for large scale kits. You can bet that I'll buy the iconic, well known stuff FIRST, and obscure things only afterwards. If I see Mustangs and Spitfires and Corsairs at airshows, I'll be all fired up to get kits of those when I get home. And then I see a Sea Fury at an airshow, and now I really want one. Very glad that one is in the works from Special Hobby.

I can't even imagine being happy with a kit upscaled to 1/32 from 1/72. The extra details available in good 1/32 kits is pretty much the main reason I like 1/32. As the early Mustangs in 1/32 (Hobbycraft?) upscaled from the 1/48 Accurate Miniatures Mustangs show, direct upscaling doesn't produce very satisfying results.

I hadn't even heard of it until today, but now I'm interested in a kit of the Welkin. Doesn't need to be 1/32 though. 1/48 would be fine.

I'm looking at their website, and seeing many interesting looking aircraft, but they mostly don't seem to have scales marked. I'm sure they can't be 1/32 or I would have heard about them. Are the remainder 1/72 as I suspect they are? Or do they have any output in 1/48?

I'll take difficult to build over nothing at all. Eduard has mostly abandoned 1/32 after people drew red lines all over their Bf109Es. Limited Edition repops of Hasegawa kits don't count as re-entering the 1/32 market. The only other company I can realistically imagine doing the Hellcat is Hasegawa, if they follow up their Zero retool with retools of other older products (Hellcat and Hayabusa especially). Not exciting enough for the Tamiya lineup and not daring enough for the HK lineup I think. Maybe ZM???

KH seems to have stopped doing WWII props. Which is too bad since I'd really love them to do a new 1/32 Hellcat.

I think we are in agreement that buying japanese kits from a USA importer is generally a bad idea. And buying direct from a japanese retailer (whether it's through a dedicated site like hlj.com, or through a merchant selling on amazon.com) is generally a better idea. When the new Hasegawa Zero becomes available through a japanese seller on Amazon, it will probably be a good deal. I know we talked about this before - when I got my Hasegawa Zero, I went through hlj.com and paid about $35 or so for the kit, and then maybe another $10 later for shipping. I just don't get japanese kits locally anymore. For some reason, european kits seem to be a better deal when sold at USA retailers. So I have no trouble buying Eduard, Revell, Special Hobby and similar from Spruebrothers. But for Hasegawa, Tamiya, ZM, Fujimi, Aoshima, Kotobukiya, and even sometimes Meng, Trumpeter or other chinese kits... it's hlj all the way.

The question was not what is economically feasible, but what I would like to see, and buy. That's very much the question for people making the kits though. I'd love a 1/32 Ju188, Ju288, and Ju388.... but I don't think it's as cheap and easy to make the required changes to the Ju88 base kit as you seem to suggest. A company can have all the "cojones" in the world, but if they aren't tempered with good business sense, the company will probably go out of business.

Well yeah. All Hasegawa kits and most japanese kits in general (such as Bandai, Aoshima, etc) are overpriced when purchased through USA retailers. That's why I don't do it. Over the years I have purchased literally hundreds of japanese manufactured kits FROM japan direct. Nothing has ever cost twice the retail price to ship. Or even AS much. In fact I just had 7 kits shipped together for a total of $55 via EMS. That's about $7.85 shipping per kit, via the fastest and most secure shipping method available. Hardly a budget buster.

In my head I've already bought one.

Major changes cost a lot to tool in 1/32.

I meant don't buy the Hasegawa Zero at Spruebrothers. Cheaper elsewhere. It shouldn't cost as much as a Tamiya Zero.

So don't buy it at spruebrothers?

I wonder if Special Hobby will do a 1/32 Firefly later on. Since they've done so many variations in 1/48 already...

It would probably be ICM to scale it up. Since the Revell kit is just a rebox of ICM.

I'll wait for an all-new 1/32 P-51B...

I mean, what kid walks into a hobby shop (if they can find one anymore) and looks at all the different exciting fighter and bomber models with action scenes on the boxart and says... "I want that all-blue plane with no camo and no no noseart, boldly flying quickly and taking pictures of stuff on the ground!" None, that's who. Me, not being a kid anymore, am happy to have a PR spitfire in a lineup of other Spitfires. That's why I got the Airfix 1/48 PR.XIX. But I really don't ever expect to see one in 1/32.