Monogram dreams of my youth.
When I was building plastic models in the 70s, Monogram kits were the state of the art.
I always dreamed of building on of their big bombers in 1:48, but was never able to do it.
They were too expensive for a kid with a meagre weekly allowance, and even if I had been able to afford one I wouldn't have been able to build it well, much less paint it well.
The coolest one was the B-26 Marauder. I always had a weakness for sleek streamlined shapes. I still do, that's why I usually build ships.
I told my friend Lars about this childhood dream, whereupon he said:
‘‘You can have my Marauders, I've got three.''
I immediately accepted the offer.
The plan for the build was utterly simple:
Build the kit out of the box, avoid all difficulties and then concentrate on the paint job.
For that reason I decided to build her flying, thereby avoiding wasting time on landing gears.
The underlying idea was to be true to my childhood dream. Therefore I painted her bleached olive drab with neutral grey undersides. None of those ugly invasion stripes!
Man, was it fun to airbrush those large surfaces with different shades of olive drab! Very different from the intricate paint jobs I usually do on my ship models
It was also very important that the wavy line between the olive drab and the neutral grey was diffuse (Sorry can't find the right english word right now) In reality the line was pretty sharp, but that was of no consequence. This was about making old dreams come true.
I was so eager to see the cool streamlined shape of her, that I temporarily taped the wings to the fuselage with masking tape, just to get a look at her.
As reference material I used a Magazine that featured the first review of the kit, including a Shep Paine diorama, and a booklet bought on a trip to London 1979.
I displayed the model over a Michelin map of northern France, that I used when I toured France on bike 1991. (I was a very keen touring cyclist at that time.)
When I posted some pics of the build on the IPMS-Stockholm forum, I got quite a response and it was decided that we start a ‘‘Monogram dreams of the youth'' SIG. 13 models took part in the SIG at 08-OPEN 2014.
In April 2015 we'll do it again. Build your own ‘‘Monogram dreams of the youth model'' and join in!
