by Gianmaria Corona

After having built only 48th scale models for years, I decided last year to come back to the "mother" of all scale kits, the 72nd one, when I saw the little and nice Sea Hawk made by MPM.
This is a typical short run kit with all the pros & cons this implies.
Even if this is a good quality model kit, it lacks the refinements in the smaller details .
Nevertheless, for a reasonable price it's a very good base....better than the old Airfix kit.
Wanting to do a good job, I decided to improve my model by scratchbuilding all the frames, tubes and wires in the undercarriage bays using plastirods, electrical copper wire and tin soldering wires.
I also used parts of the Airwaves p/e fret for reproducing the seatbelts and the lateral instruments panels in the cockpit. The front instrument panel has been scratchbuilt using plasticard and p/e dials from a Reheat's modern bezels fret. It has not been an easy job, but the result is a pleasure for eyes.
I also replaced the jet exhausts pipes from plastirod tubes.

For the camouflage, I used only water colours from Vallejo Model Air range: Model Air Nr. 009 for the Sky and Nr. 053 for the Extra dark Sea Gray. After having airbrushed a coat of Gunze Sangyo Clear Gloss, I applied the decals which comes from Model Art sheet Nr. 72/026. The decals are not as good as I expected, but having found only the MPM kit for the German Navy version and wanting to complete the plane in a FAA finish, I was forced to use them.
The black / yellow stripes have been reproduced by spraying the yellow areas before applying black hand cut decals stripes.
A final coat of Gunze Clear Flat and some weathering done by spraying Gunze Smoke colour completed the job.
It has not been a weekend job, but I really enjoyed it and even if the result is not "perfect" I'm very satisfied.
I hope you also like my model.
Happy modelling!

Gianmaria