Lifelike Decals has long been known for their high quality, limited edition decal releases. The decals come in the customary clear plastic zip bag, and inside you will find two full color, single sided pages with color callouts, decal placement guides, references, and a ton of historical information on each aircraft covered. Not to mention the decals themselves. This release contains one standard size decal sheet with markings for four WWII Imperial Japanese Army Ki-44 Shoki “Tojo” fighters, as well as a smaller sheet with the kill markings, and a small “correction” sheet for kill markings. Decals are printed by Cartograf of Italy, and are clear and in perfect register.

What’s in the Bag?

The presentation of every Afterburner decal I’ve ever seen is very eye-catching, and this one is no exception. The cover sheet has left-side profiles of the 8 aircraft represented in the package, along with a color print of the squadron patch of each aircraft. Flip the baggie over and you’re presented with a very colorful 8” x 10” decal sheet full of markings and stencils. Stick your meaty paws inside the baggie and it gets better. In addition to the 8” x 10” decal sheet, there is a 5” x 8” sheet with further markings and stencils, mostly black, white, and brown. All decals, printed by Cartograf, appear to be in register, shiny, sharply printed, and with excellent color saturation. They do, however, feel thicker than your typical aftermarket sheet; we’ll find out more about that when I put them on a model.

Tamiya’s new 1/32nd scale P-51 has created a surge of new decals for that subject, and Lifelike Decals have done their part, as well. This sheet provides markings for four colorful Mustangs, three from the European Theater and one from the Pacific Theater:

Lifelike Decals always offers some unique decal options and this sheet is typical Lifelike quality. Designed for the Tamiya P-51D and the Trumpeter/Revell P-51B, these decals offer some very unique looking machines.

The instructions are on three sheets, two single-sided A4 sheets and one half-page. The single-sided sheets include the profiles and plan views, as well as the historical and research data. The smaller half-page sheet contains the stencil placement.

Lifelike Decals has used Cartograf out of Italy to print their decals. Cartograf printing is perfect, with even the smallest detail being picked out. The decals are thin, in perfect register, and with good color saturation. They also respond to setting solutions and conform to compound curves. There are three sheets of decals. The first one has all the markings, while the little sheet has the nose art. The other sheet contains the national markings and stencils.

Want a variety of marking and painting options for your Hasegawa Ki-44? Well, Lifelike Decals has exactly what you are looking for on this sheet. It features four aircraft in four distinct paint schemes and marking options.

The instructions are printed on two single-sided A4 sheets in full color. The first page is the cover and the back with the plan views of the subject aircraft. Interestingly, the second aircraft is not shown in the plan views. The other page includes the history and the research used to determine the markings. This is one of the things that Lifelike Decals does better than most manufacturers, in that they show you where they got the research and the logic behind the color call-outs. They don’t even pretend that they know all the answers but give you, the modeler, the information to do with as you please.