Decals Used To Be Cool

When I was a kid, my favorite part of building a model was putting on the decals. And my favorite decal had to be the teeth on the Monogram P-40B Tiger Shark. When those decals went on that model transformed from ordinary pursuit plane to aviation legend.

Each stage of building a model should be a satisfying transformation: watching the shapes form while gluing parts together, then transforming them again with paint. But maybe because back then I did it last, applying decals felt then like the most triumphant of transformations. It was complete, and I finally got to see what I’d been imagining.

So it never occurred to me that decals are frustrating. Sure, I was frustrated when at times they ripped apart, glued themselves together, curled up, silvered, or simply failed to stick. And I was elated when they snuggled down and iced the cake. But I never noticed that, taken as a broad practice over years of modeling, decals are much more frustrating than they are satisfying.

Something is bound to go wrong. The thrill of those sharks teeth has finally worn off. Decals are an irritating, expensive pain in the butt.

I’m a paint mask guy now. Of course I screw up paint, too, as much as I do decals. But for me it comes down to this: paint mistakes seem much more repairable than decal mistakes. Almost always, the best, easiest solution to fixing a decal mistake is removing and replacing it with another decal, assuming it hasn’t damage the paint underneath. If it has, you’re repainting, and maybe even stripping first.

A really bad painting mistake means stripping and repainting, too, but most are simpler corrections. Bleed under a mask? Paint over it. Overspray? Paint over it. Most painting mistakes require just a little more painting, the thing you’re already doing. Not starting over. Not buying a whole new bottle of paint.

And paint looks like paint. Decals are screen printed ink meant to look like paint. It’s way easier to make model paint look like real paint than to make model decals look like real paint. The thrall of decals is over for me.

Since I’ve been cutting my own I’ve made masks to paint rudder stripes, checkerboards, roundels, hinomaru, five and six-pointed stars, and a variety of numbers and letters. I once used a very good Montex mask set to paint the teeth on a P-400, but I haven’t yet designed my own. Now that GWH has produced the best “Tiger Shark” in any scale? Stay tuned…