Guys, a new player in the market 1/48 1/72 1/144 warplanes and tanks (1/35)!

Hi all,

I'm Anthony, I have a toy/collectables design company and I'm looking going into the military aircraft (&tank) scale model market. I've been into scale models for as long as I can remember and I seriously want to commit to this.

I have a few prototypes and I'm talking to manufacturers about molds. My focus currently is 1/72 and 1/48 assembled and painted plastic scale models.

I'm inviting comments from you gentlemen (and ladies if there are any here) on assembled&painted vs unassembled kits, 1/48 vs 1/72, particular themes or aircrafts?

I know 1/72 WW2 is rather small, so likely I'll go with 1/48 for WW2 and 1/72 for modern. However there's a series of twin-engine WW2 aircrafts I'm working on likely to be in 1/72.

Let me know what you guys think, appreciate your thoughts.

cheers,
Anthony

I always prefer unassembled rather than preassembled and pre-painted. For me the fun is in the building and painting the model yourself and trying to make a great model aircraft

Also, may be completely wrong but in Taiwan at least, unassembled models seem much more popular. There are surprisingly a lot of shops selling unassembled models (usuaully with a huge Gundam section but a fair amount of tanks, ships and aircraft too) and only one shop I've seen that specialises in pre-assembled and pre-painted models.


As for the aircraft, guess it would be nice to have more options of the more obscure aircraft like the International AMX, Pucara etc which seem difficult to find (I love the Pucara but can't find a model one at all in Taiwan ) rather than ones like the F-16 and F-15 which every shop seems to have dozens Also, oddly, people seem to love the Sepecat Jaguar here. Each shop seems to have a huge selection of Jaguar models.



Best of luck with it anyway! Hope it goes well.

I have no interest for anything assembled.

As for scale; only 1/48.

On subjects, if you are searching a niche:

SAM installations or anti aircraft equipment in general, seems almost completely lacking on the market.

The same for complete jet engines on a maintenance stand

Maybe as a start, you don't need to make an entire model but can make a conversion set, e.g. converting he REVELL CH-53 model in 1/48 scale into a MH-53 Pave low

Just my 0.01 cents

good luck

I like the SAM and AA suggestion. I've always found those interesting but, other than some WW2 flak cannons I haven't seen many for sale. I'd love to add a ZSU to my model collection at some point

There seems to be a manufacturer making the whole patriot installation in 1/48 scale but I have never seen this in reality.

But Yes, I would love a 1/48 scale Nike Hercules, Oerlikon 35 mm twin canon, skyshield, Bristol bloodhound ...

After all, I need some protection for Drabslab AFB

Hydroplanes are a nice segment to spend a few €$ in R&D in my humble opinion.
Quarter scale subjects are few, a bit more on 1/72 I suppose, but beetween inter-war years and WW2 you have dozens of Hydros that deserve to be moulded in plastic.

Pedro

thanks guys, keep those comments coming.