Leaderboard

The following may seem off-topic and a bit of a long story, but please bear with me. However, for the more sensitive mask-users among us please note that it contains several references to "the 'D' Word" More years ago than I care to remember, in the late 1960s, my local model shop where I grew up carried a small stock of aftermarket decals: most of them were aimed at the flying model fraternity, but there were a few sheets that suited 1/72 model aeroplanes. I soon discovered the joys of going off-piste and doing a subject not in the box - or more usually the Airfix bag. A bit later I discovered Modeldecals, sold by Modeltoys in Portsmouth. Much later I found myself moving to Portsmouth for work, and Modeltoys was my local hobby shop. Aftermarket decal heaven! Fast forward many years, and I was occasionally venturing into the box subjects if I fancied said subject, but generally I still liked to know that I had made a model that was a bit different. The drawback was, of course, that anyone else who had bought the same aftermarket sheet may have picked the same subject. So coming up to date, having got into making my own masks, it feels good to know that I can make what is likely to be a truly unique model. For me that is a small part of enjoying my hobby (although I dread to think what it says to a psychologist about my ego). Whilst I do not claim a fully comprehensive knowledge of every decal sheet ever released, I was pretty sure that "The Comet" had never been done in a decal sheet. So I designed and cut my masks, as seen above, and then, recently, I stumbled across THIS! https://www.eduard.com/out/media/D32013.pdf Yes, it has "The Comet" on it! This has given me a dilemma. To abandon this subject and find another truly unique one: perhaps "Duchess of Manhattan" from the 361st, my reserve subject. It does not tick the box of a lesser-known fighter group, but in all other respects is interesting, and I don't know of any decals for it. The other option is to carry on and not waste the work I've done so far. So that's where I am at the moment. It's interesting that Eduard's interpretation has the name and artwork on both sides of the nose. I don't have or know of any photos of the starboard side nose. Looking at the design of the wording and the artwork, it just looks wrong to me to have the art going "backwards" on the aeroplane. But the "THE" seems designed to accommodate the comet artwork, so putting it in front on the starboard side would also seem not quite right. So my interpretation was, and still is, to put the nose art on the port side only. But I think I'll stick with "The Comet". After all, the Eduard sheet also has a couple of 20th FG birds, a Blue-Nosed Bodney resident and "Lou IV", so I suspect "The Comet" will be the least popular. In any case, I will know I did it with masks. At the moment I'm still working on the cockpit interior, so another post here may be some time. But until I do, thanks for staying with me and reading my ramblings.