Impressed by this beautiful modern aircraft, I decided to get one from a local hobby shop which the only Gripen they are selling is this 1/72 Tamiya Gripen which is actually a rebox of Italeri kit. The fit has some terrible flaw, the main fuselage fitted into the wing has a massive gap requiring plenty of puffy and filling.  I thought this kind of problem only happened in those  low end China brand model kit.  Quite unforgivable for such a mistake. This means they had a serious measurement problem which needs to be corrected in future.  Decals are also produced in low quality.  The decal sheet is so thin that it causes great difficulties in applying it on model kit as it split easily. The kit almost could not be finished as many decal were wasted in the process.  Fortunately, there are 3 versions of decal and I just manage to salvage whatever is available to make a decent Gripen.

Click on images below to see larger images

Everything is built out of box except the AIM-120 missiles which were scratch built. Maverick missiles and multi-weapon rack are borrowed from a left over kit.  I don't know if such a weapons load configuration exists?  But I just wanted my Gripen to look more multi-role and aggressive.

Everything is hand painted and the main color is Gunze Light Grey and mix of light grey with black.  Panel lines are highlighted by 2B pencil and post shading is done by carbon black powder.  I am thankful this Gripen is managed to turn out what I expected minimum of it.

Zenden Ng

Click on images below to see larger images