Model Art Magazine is a monthly magazine that covers aircraft, armor, ships and car modeling. Model Art started releasing magazines in 1966 and has evolved from there over the past forty six years.

The February issue starts off with a report from the 2013 Tamiya fair. Some of the kits on the horizon are a 1/6 Harley Davidson FLSTFB Fat Boy Lo, 1/72 Mitsubishi A6M3/3a Zero Fighter Model 22 (Zeke), 1/35 Ford GPA with engine, 1/35 German Horch Kfz. 15 "North African Campaign", 1/48 Russian 1.5 ton Cargo Truck Model 1941, paintbrushes and tools. Also included in the first few pages is a page dedicated to the Eduard 1/72 Mig-15 in Czechoslovakian in Service Dual Combo and the Eduard aftermarket sets that could be used with it. Another page covers an auto show and then the next installment of I.J.A/N. Airplane Illustrated. This month’s installment covers torpedo sighting devices. They use photos of the actual units and drawings in the article.

This month’s Model Art main article features techniques on how to improve ship models. Some of the areas covered are, painting decks, working with photo etch and rigging. There are many color photos that show the step-by-step process of these techniques. The models that are used are as follows, Aoshima 1/700 Full Hull IJN Heavy Cruiser Atago 1942, Fujimi 1/700 IJN Aircraft Carrier Akagi, Pit-Road 1/700 IJN Multiple Torpedo Tubes Mounted Cruiser Kitakami, Pit-Road 1/700 IJN Destroyer Ikazuchi and Tamiya 1/700 IJN Battleship Yamato w/ Detail up parts.

Next keeping in line with the naval theme from this month is eleven pages of line drawings of armament found on IJN vessels. This covers the main batteries, torpedoes and anti-aircraft machine guns. Each is drawn with a scale figure to show the size comparison.

Next are several articles that run in every issue. This starts with the Combined Fleet Organized Course. This months ship is an IJN refueler. A Japanese modeler writes the next article. This is the fifth installment and this month he writes about building the Tamiya 1/25th Tiger I. MA Event Report features coverage from the 43rd Tokyo Motor Show 2013. To finish out these short articles is the modeling of the JASDF. This month’s subject matter is a mix of Tomytec models in 1/144th scale from the JASDF.

New Kit Review is the next section up. This month's models are as follows. Tamiya 1/35th Italian/German 508cm "Coloniale" Staff car, Minicraft 1/72 PBM-5A Mariner, AZmodels 1/72 AH-1G early and AH-1G late, Aoshima 1/24th Toyota Celica Gt-Four (ST165), Kinetic Alpha Jet A/E, AFV 1/35 Norwegian NM-116 Tank, Meng 1/35 French FT-17 Light Tank (Cast Turret) and Fujimi 1/72 JGSDF 3 1/2 ton Big Truck w/launcher and JGSDF 3 1/2 ton Big Truck w/ Fire Control System.

The last article is the Neo Historic Garage. This is a monthly article that features newer released models of mostly stock vehicles from the early to mid eighties. This month’s model is the Aoshima 1/24 Nissan Cedric Sedan 200E GL. The rest of the magazine consists of future releases of models and model products, book review and hobby shop ads.

With every issue of Model Art, it seems that they are always trying to keep the publication fresh and updated so the issues don't become stale. I really commend them for doing this.

Even though Model Art is mainly printed in Japanese, I still find it to be a very valuable resource. For those that are more technologically advanced there are apps that will translate Japanese to English. I use one of these and it really helps to understand the articles. I recommend Model Art to modelers as another publication that you can pull information from.

I would like to thank Model Art and IPMS/USA for the opportunity to review this magazine.