I’ve read a number of books about 20th century so-called brush wars, and it becomes fairly obvious over time that these small, relatively isolated conflicts often serve as relief valves for larger nations who dare not directly confront each other. In the nuclear age, such aggressiveness would almost certainly be fatal.
It has been an honor to review Special Hobby’s new AH-1G kit, and hereby express extreme thanks to them for providing IPMS USA with this new release. We continue to be fortunate with their ongoing support of the reviewer corps!
Special Hobby continues to provide subjects avoided by others… as a business model, this ensures they continue to exist and thrive on the concept of “do what others can’t or won’t”.
(Note: the Air Force Reserve unit here in Oklahoma has always had “SH” as their Fighter unit tail marking, meaning what everyone should know it does. In the case of this review as a transplant Okie I shall use SH as an abbreviation for Special Hobby, intending it to mean “S-Hot” in their case for untouchable ability and a quality product)
ICM is a hobby company based out of Ukraine. They have provided IPMS-USA a six (6) bottle acrylic paint set for review.
In the Box
The paint set contains six (6) 12ml bottles with nontoxic water based acrylic paints. The following colors are provided:
- Camouflage Green (1071)
- White (1001)
- Olive Green (1068)
- Aluminum (1023)
- Black (1002)
- Varnish Satin (2002)
Straight out of the bottle, the paint’s viscosity is thick and purposely prepared for brush painting. The instructions do recommend thinning 40-60% with water or thinner for airbrushing. All surfaces are recommended to have primer applied prior to painting. Volume wise, the paint takes up about 70% of the bottle and has “room” to add thinner if so desired.
Note, the bottles are not the usual dropper style (think Vallejo) but a twist off cap and a large opening to allow brushes to enter the bottle.
Hobby Boss first released their new-tooled F4U-1A Corsair back in 2012. Thirteen years later in 2023, after numerous reiterations and re-releases, they have produced a 2 in 1 release with extra parts to provide a kit of the -1A and -2, respectively.
Construction, as is the norm, begins in the softly detailed cockpit. There is no provision for any type of seat harness, so I used a set from a Warbirds Decals sheet. Overall detail in the cockpit is soft, and the instrument panel decal is lacking in detail.
Step 2 has the modeler construct the engine, replete with a full exhaust collection ring and exhaust. The instructions are confusing in this step (as with many other steps), so the fitting of the exhaust system was done by trial and error. Parts of this subassembly are nicely detailed, such as the exhaust system & transmission housing, while the cylinder heads are soft.
Tru-Color Paint is a US-based model paints manufacturer. They have an extensive line of railroad and car paints and are continuously expanding their military line (aircraft, naval, armor).
This set includes the following colors (all of them already available in their line).
- TCP-433 Matte Black
- TCP-1226 Titanium
- TCP-1272 FS-33531 Middlestone
- TCP-1274 FS-30219 Brown
- TCP-1275 FS-34424 Sky Green
- TCP-1277 FS-36375 Light Compass Ghost Gray
Based on my research -use it at your own risk. The colors included in this set are all the main colors used in the camouflage for the F-16, F-15 and some Kfir C2 (late service) and most Kfir C7 (late service).
You can still use the Middlestone and Brown for other IAF aircraft (like Super Mystere, Mirages, F-4 Phantom, A-4 Skyhawk) but the underside color and/or green color used in these airframes are different than the ones included in the set.