Digging through my closet, I finally found the old Hasegawa 1/72 scale F-14 “Jolly Rogers” Tomcat I was looking for. This is one of the 3 or 4 model aircrafts I built when I was 16 years old, the others being an F-18 Hornet, a Black Hawk and another which I can remember.
When I did these models I had no money to buy anything more than the models themselves, Tamiya glue, and several bottles of paint. I had no hobby knife – I just used a regular blade I got from the bookstore. I could not afford a good modelling brush so I settled for a cheap one from the art supply store.
Needless to say, I could not afford an airbrush.
F-14 Tomcat "Jolly Rogers" With Wings Open
You can see the model above, now almost completely damaged from dust, mildew, and mishandling. I painted the whole model by hand, using 1-2 different paints mostly, and borrowed the rest from my cousin who was also into scale modelling at that time.
F-14 Tomcat "Jolly Rogers" with Wings Swept Back
Another picture with the wings swept back.
Back view of the plane, you can see the messy work...
The underbelly of the plane. I initially fitted it with wheels, but one fine day my mom’s friend brought her devil son to my home, and the kid quietly took it from the display case, and started playing with it as if it was a real plane.
He destroyed it of course, and in many ways it was after that incident that I had completely abandoned scale modelling for 10 years.
Damaged and destoyed..
You can see the fuel tanks , front wheel and weapons, which were broken off during that fateful day.
Inspired by the movie Top Gun 
Another view of the cockpit, where you can see I went to great lengths to color the cockpit and helmets to match those of Top Gun (the movie) pilots. I really loved that movie, and I’m sure a lot of guys my age did too.
Anyway, it’s been more than 10 years now since I did scale modelling. The good news is that now I have money. A lot of money. Plus, a lot of time too.
So I’ve decided to take up scale modelling again, and this time I want to do it right. I want to get all the correct tools, learn all the required skills, and buy lot of new models.
In fact I should be getting my hands on three brand new model aircraft kits in the next few days, which I ordered from Aviation Megastore. I will blog about that later.
I’m creating this blog for two simple reasons.
- I love writing and blogging, and I want to share
- It’s the only way I can keep track of everything and be serious about it
Some day, I will buy the exact model you see here, the Hasegawa F-14 “Jolly Rogers” Grunman Tomcat, and create it with my new tools and skills. Lots of time to go, considering I’m starting from ground zero here, but I’m looking forward to it.
Related posts:
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
hello.. nice F-14 Tomcat. Look like you a pro modeler. where you from? i’m from malaysia and i build scale model too. I build 1/24 scale cars. Maybe we can make some link exchange.