Here is my 'cat mouth' hellcat built for the show your teeth campaign.

OK, This is quite honestly not my greatest work ever. If you spend any time really looking at the pictures you can find multiple flaws (ill-spaced guns, wrinkled decals, wrong cat mouth decals for -5, etc to name a few). In short pretty much everything that could go poorly did, and I got to the point of not wanting to take any time fixing it. I did try rescribing and did pretty well on the wings. The fuselage was a disaster though. Oh well. Someday I will pull out a new hasegawa 1/72 hellcat (it is actually a pretty nice kit) and try again with more patience...

Anyway, here are the pictures. Let me know what you think. I would love to hear your thoughts on the exhaust especially. Also, if you see any technique things I would love to hear that as I am always trying to improve. Nothing will hurt my feelings...









Leon

Hi Leon!

You are very rude to yourself!

Frankly, I can't see all the flaws you mention on the pictures, so I will say you are a good photographer! :-)
Anyway, I think the model looks good on the photos and the exhaust stains are convincing to me. On the bad side I would say the cockpit frames are too thick for my taste (but it's 1/72) and the structure on the tyres seems overdone for the scale (kit parts?)
In all, a very nice and welcome addition to the "Teeth" Campaign! Thank you very much Leon!

Jean-Luc

Leon, you are too harsh on yourself, you are a good photographer though
Exhaust staining looks good, the only thing is that, on these aircraft it had a distinct arc, with the air flow over the wings. Another thing with exhaust stains, they tend to start a little way beyond the end of the pipe/s.

A tip for attaching guns and other sticky out things, try taping a match stick or cocktail stick to the wing first. Make sure it is at right angles to the wing leading edge or parallel to the fuselage, if the leading edge is tapered. This will then give you an easy, close, reference point for allignment.

The nav lights look good, how did you do them? I'm in the process of writing an article on them.

Mal

Ok, you got me here. Since only the Hellcats flying off of the Princeton had the mouths, and then had to paint them over after she sank, were they only flying -3's?

I absolutely agree. The cockpit frames should be thinner - Darn . For the tires, they are kit. In trying to get the mold line off, I sanded away some detail, so I tried reputting on the tread with a mini saw blade. This was definately not the best tool for the job as it is way over scale. What do other's use for this task?




Thanks for the tips. After reading this, I looked more carefully at pictures and think I see what you are seeing. Thanks for pointing it out; I am planning another hellcat in the future and hope to improve on the staining on that one.




Great tip! Definately something I will do next time! So easy and helpful.




I painted them silver and then painted over that with the tamiya clear colors. I am becoming a fan of replacing lights with clear sprue but went with the quick, easy way this time. Glad to hear that it went off well .




Maybe I'm wrong in what I said. It is just I used the decals that were for the tri-color -3 scheme in the box. The -5 had cat mouth decals without black outlines and without bloodshot eyes.


Thanks again for the comments guys. I really appreciate it. While I am not super proud of this one, I am more or less happy and it lives on my display shelf - not the trash... .
Leon

Leon, if I should ever build a model that looks this bad, I will enter it in every contest I can. :-) :-) .

Mike

Nice work Leon.
As far as your attempt at scribing goes, I can email ya some pic's of a real disaster. :-)
My son is building that exact same kit as we speak. Hope to have it finished up by the weekend.
One question. How come everytime I build a plane and don't add the antenna wire Jean-Luc screams at me.....but you didn't do yours and he didn't say a word? I'm gonna file a protest. :-)
Nah, great work. Looks fine to me all the way around.

Thanks Hermon and mj, I really appreciate it. And Hermon, it is quite easy - I have paid Jean-Luc .
Leon

:-)

Jean-Luc

Leon,

I think you have done a great job here and you should be pleased.

In my mind, if a model looks the part, then job done! You have easily accomplished this.

I look forward to your next one.

Mark

Leon,
Looks great to me,,(or maybe its just the photography? :-) )
Hopefully one day I'll build something to that quality and think its not one of my better efforts
Looking forward to the next one
Nige

Thanks Arnold, Mark, and Nigel. I appreciate it. Toning down the 'cat' decals is a good idea.

Thanks again,
Leon

Sorry for the unnecessary post here, but I'm trying to see if I can figure out how to make thumbnails.



Thanks, Seems to work. When clicking on the picture it opens the bigger photo in another window...

:)
Leon