Hi Louis!
Thanks for the feedback my friend. Let me tell you a secret, that “striped” motltling, is deceivingly easy. I had to redo my first try at it, something i don’t recall doing before in past mottling painting 😉
About the fit of parts and construction, well it’s the best engineered 1/48 kit I made so far, and so in my opinion the peak of Tamiya shake ‘n bake tradition. You can’t miss the wing dihedral, U/C leg stance and so on...all falls into place without effort, and sometimes without glue (wing cannon gondola for instance).
The only details that need some care are the air scoops that come solid and so I drilled the openings, and some inspection hatches at the lower wings that need filling (perhaps a sign that Tamiya is considering a later version of the Gustav...G-10?).
Again, the long time seen on this thread doesn’t match the actual time I spent building the kit, I would say any normal modeler can build it in a couple of weeks or so.
Oh, and another thing, I used the kit decals for the underwing crosses and they behaved as good as any other good AM decals. Gonna try some of the stencils later today but so far these are not the old thick film decals Tamiya had in most of its kits.
