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Jaime Carreon
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Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress….Meng 1/144-ish Nose Art Group Build

No nose art forum would be complete without a in it, as that airplane is pretty much the poster child for that genre. Look for nose art on any search engine and chances are the first hit you'll get will be a B-17.

After the Monogram Mustang debacle, I wasn't really in the mood to dive into another somewhat serious sandpaper and bondo project. On top of that, life came calling in the form of numerous home improvement projects aimed at getting things out of the way before retirement. On a trip to a local craft store in the middle of all that, I came across this kit just begging me to pick it up. Since this group build is not at all 100% serious, and I wasn't ready for another heavy duty build, I downloaded the store coupon and walked away with the model for just over five bucks. I am nothing if not cheap...

It's basically a snap together kit, so assembly to the point of it looking like an airplane took all of 20 minutes. It's molded in olive and gray plastic in all the right places, so if you're really lazy you don't even have to paint it. Of course, being the semi dedicated sorta serious modeler that I am, I used glue and a little bit of Vallejo acrylic putty, and because I am totally lazy, painted the model from Model Master rattle cans. The paint part took hours as usual, 99% masking and 1% painting. I thought I was going to have a serious lapse and order some gun barrels for it, as the kit parts have two gun barrels molded as one, but a couple of swipes with a razor saw to separate them and a few minutes work with a small drill in a pin vise turned out to be cheaper and just as effective.

The problem of decals arose, as the markings that come with the kit are stickers. Ten minutes on the internet resulted in an order for Kits World sheet KW144028 in 1/144 scale, which contains markings for four currently restored B-17's. On top of that list was the Confederate Air Force's "Texas Raiders", which was a no brainer for me as I'm a native Texan and the airplane is based right here in Houston not far from where I live. The decals are amazing for as small as they are, and went on with no trouble at all.

This little cartoon model was just a whole lot of fun to build and I'd recommend it to anyone who needs to get out of a modeling funk. Hope y'all enjoy it!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Raiders

Reader reactions:
3  Awesome

9 additional images. Click to enlarge.


11 responses

  1. This must be the cutest B17 I have ever seen! For the shape of it you would think it be ideal to drop chocolate eggs at Easter! I like the paintjob!

  2. Fantastic work on a brilliant little caricature. I've seen other single engine 'eggplanes' but never a Fortress. Great finishing, and thanks for sharing, Jaime.

  3. Great "little" build, Jaime...I love it !

  4. That's cute...LOL. Seriously, looks pretty good. BTW, where did you get the TR decal?

  5. Gave me a real smile. Good to see the fun side shining through! Great addition!

  6. Love it. Great cartoon addition to the group build. Kinda feel like I need to get one of these mini kits for fun.

    Cheers!

  7. Nice build! Same amount of work goes into these kits as does any other 'scale' kit. Kudos all around!

  8. Cool. I get it. The Flying Wreck from Texas Tech.

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