The Tamiya P-47 is a
natural canvas for the artist and modeler alike. Lifelike
Decals provides markings
for three very colorful aircraft. Designed for the Tamiya excellent kit,
the decals are some of the best out there.
Lifelike provides
the modeler with two full color instructions. One contains the side
profiles and upper/lower surfaces and the other contains the side profiles plus
some detail photos and drawings, as well as, the research data used to determine
the colors of the markings. I like this approach. It allows you to
see how the colors were selected and how the artist draws his conclusion.
Click on
images below to see larger images
The decals are
provided on two small sheets. The largest one contains most of the
markings for the aircraft. The smaller one contains all the stencils and
some individual markings. The decals are all perfectly in register and
very thin.
The first
Thunderbolt is a D-30 with a colorful white and light blue checkerboard on the
cowling. In addition to the checkerboard there is nose art, a mean looking
bomb, and kill markings. I love 9th Air Force P-47s. You will not
find many aircraft with such colorful markings.
Black and white.
You like your aircraft in black and white? The second aircraft has it in
spades, no pun intended. The cowling has a white front with a band of
black aft of that with stars all the way around the cowling. You add
fuselage invasion stripes and tail identification markings and you have a really
sharp looking aircraft. The nose are of “The Mad Pole” is on the white
portion of the cowling.
We all are familiar
with Glenn Eagleston’s yellow cowling with skull and cross bones, but what we
haven’t seen very much is that this was actually a squadron marking. Lt.
Chuck Olmsted with the name ‘Polly’ and ‘Double Trouble’ on the fuselage
is quite colorful. This would make a nice addition to a diorama with an
Eagleston P-47 or as a colorful alternative to the old markings.
Good markings and
excellent research set Lifelike Decals apart from the rest. These are some
of the best decals available.
Highly recommended.
Thanks to Lifelike
Decals for the
review copy. Tell them you heard about it here.
You can purchase these decals
either directly from Lifelike
Decals at fax number is
+81-3-5680-6733, and e-mail is lifelike@eos.ocn.ne.jp.
or from HobbyLink Japan.
Other shops that stock Life like
Decals are *Hannants/UK, *Mister Kit/Italy, *Revi (publisher)/Czech Republic, *SkyGrid/Canada,
*Roll Models/USA, *Great Models Webstore/USA, *FlightDecs/Canada,
*Victory Models/USA
*M & Models/USA, *Zed
Hobbies/Australia, *AB
&S Enterprise/Australia, *Desert Miniature/USA
Floyd
S. Werner, Jr.
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