Hello everybody,
Finally I have been able to finish what was the decisive decal test, the A320Neo Hong Kong Express. I can’t say it is a project I enjoyed because I was feeling that everything was being delayed. This model should have been finished at least a couple weeks ago, but I had some issues with the approach I took to place the decals and I had to re make the model.
It is not perfect, I think the Zvezda kit does not only have the windows too big, but they are also too high, it was a mistake to follow their height but overall I am satisfied with the decals and this was a final test for them. I have to reduce a little bit the nose door registration, the green line decal inside the engines has also been modified afterwards to have a more saturated color.
Since this was supposed to be a quick out of box build, I did not do a mixture for the purple color, I used the best match I had on my shelf but the “Hk” decal is actually a closer match to the real aircraft rather than the paint I used for the tail and engines.
I can see that the decal sets will be bigger than an A4 sheet since I will be including enough decals for the white underneath the needed colors. The instructions also have to be redesigned in order to point where white underlaying goes and other tips for more complex liveries as well as a black/white decal layout to see everything in detail.
Since this film carrier is very thin, it is not troublesome to use white layers first for some specific areas because the decal dries and sticks to the surface very easily and rather quickly. So far this kind of film is the thinnest one I ever tried and it practically does not show the edge around the cut, at the same time, the film is very resistant. As always with all decals, placing the decal must be done with still the backing paper holding it and on the airplane surface just sliding the decal to place to avoid the decal to fold itself.
As you can see from the photos, this model also features my previously made PW Neo engines which include photo realistic pylon decals. After the completion of this model I can finally start working on the LEAP-1A engine.
Next step will be to finally resume the projects I have started and start the LEAP-1A engines. I will also be making more units of the out stock items so I hope to set them available in due time. I expect to have the livery decals available a month from now as I have to do these minor modifications to the instructions as well as print everything.
Hopefully I can upload some progress on the current projects on next week!
Thank you all for reading!
Best wishes,
Guillem