A-20G, New Guinea

This will be a fairly low-effort build (closed bomb bay & canopy), but I did have Eduard's original style PE interior set for this, so I used it. 

Kept the kit seat since Eduard's was not really that much of an improvement but did use their belts, which I am 90% sure are placed wrong. Oh well.
 

Also kept some of the kit parts here too, supplemented with Eduard's bits. I forget what a pain these older style Eduard sets are. Fiddly doesn't even begin to describe it. The carpet monster ate Eduard's PE compass, so the pilot is going to have to rely on dead reckoning. 

Other than some minor scratchbuilding and improvement of kits parts, low-effort like I said. One area that will need attention are the carb air intakes, way too thick as molded so a-trimming we go. 

Putting in a little effort on the turret since it's highly visible, from the top at least. 

More detail that will never be seen but as the saying goes "at least I know it's there." 

Kit .50cal barrels were pretty anemic, so replaced with brass rod. Haven't figured out a way to make the cooling holes in the barrel jacket and I didn't want to spend more $ on Master barrels, so I let it slide (hey, I said it was going to be low effort) 😉 

Remember, every fifth round is a tracer...supposedly. 

Kit guns mocked into place. Still looking for some good pics of the sighting mechanism. I think the kit has it as that thing painted brown, which I thought might have been a crash pad, but hard to say. Will scratch something better if I find some better reference pics. 

Fuselage closed up and nose grafted on. This kit was picked up from a fellow scalemate and they had some parts from other boxings. He had already assembled the nose well, so why not use it. Plenty of weight hidden in there to keep it from being a tail sitter. The wing spar had unfortunately snapped during shipping, hence the braces. 

I've never actually built an AMT aircraft kit and the fit isn't terrible. It's not Tamiya by any means, but just a little minor seam work and so far the glass has fit quite well. 

Not to say it's trouble free...the closed bomb bay doors had large gaps front and rear and were flush on the sides, so a little plastic card front and back and some careful scribing on the sides made things a little more uniform. 

Like I said, it's no Tamiya, but the fit is certainly better than Monogram's B-26 and A-26 that used the same approach to attaching the stabilizers. Clamping during gluing will close up most of these gaps. 

Doodle coat in progress. 

I see broccoli, green peas from a can, lima beans and definitely some spinach...I'm running out of green shades, might have to mix some more! 

Blend coating done, forest green spots added. 

Overview. The 89th BS used a green tail top. All I had close was XF-5 so there you go. 

Kit details are not bad. Engine just needed some wiring. 

Underside a little lightened neutral grey. Looks the part. 

Chipping done, gloss coat and decals, then a light matte coat to give the oils some grip. 

This has been something of a mojo-destroying build. If I had been ambitious, I would have painted the wing walk and prop danger warnings instead of decals because they are too stark, but I'm not, so I'll tone them down with some oils. Chipping also didn't come off like I wanted. I heard you could just brush hairsrpay on instead of airbrushing to get more in places you want to chip more. This didn't really work out. Left brush strokes and way too much chipping, except in places where I wanted it, the panel edges. Well, live and learn. 

The forest green edges came out ok, just used paper masks for a slightly soft edge since it wasn't factory applied (as far as I know). 

The nose art decal was too flat looking, so I added a touch of shadows with oils and I'm pleased with how that turned out, gives it a little depth. 

The name refers to a character from a 1931 Damon Runyon short story, "The Bloodhounds of Broadway". Another "Big Nig" Runyon character was
from "Little Miss Marker" and was a streetsmart crapshooter...an interesting name for an A-20 in a desperate war against the Japanese.

Most of the planes of the 3rd BG had nose art of the pilots or other Runyon characters done by the squadron's parachute rigger, all done in the same style. 

Ah, finally off the bench. Glad to be done with this one. Canopy issues, more bits than usual breaking off and just overall poor fit. Still, happy with how it ended up and learned some lessons for next time. Better pics to follow. 

Always liked the lines of the A-20, which is why I started this beast of a kit in the first place. Maybe the HK 1/32 version fits better? 

Underside. Had the perfect flush landing lights, then the super glue seeped in and fogged them. 

Final pics. Really need to start doing dio bases for these, but it takes precious time away from gluing and painting plastic! 

AMT/Italeri build always good for teeth grinding, elevated blood pressure and fit issues, but at least the decals were pretty good. Still, nothing like one of these for honing your skills (and patience). 

Engines/props were surprisingly good. 

Love me EZ-line, simple as. 

This is the second time using doodle coat under US olive drab. Turned out a little better this time, but it seems it's a tough color to work with somewhat as it has a really thin line between too much and not enough when it comes to letting the tonal variation come through. 

I swear I dusted this thing before taking pictures. Guess I need one of those static duster things.