THE iDOLM@STER A-10A Thunderbolt II

Ron Garcia
Yikes! I had a rough time with this model. The kit is a reboxing of the ancient Revell A-10. I've read that many people think this is the most accurate 1/48 A-10 on the market. Maybe, but it was a tough build. LOTS of seams to fill and lots of sanding. The worst was the engine nacelles. I performed surgery to close the flaps. They look acceptable. Why in the world would there only be one canopy that is keyed in the open position? More surgery. I finally got to the point where I said, "Good enough," and moved onto why I have the kit anyway, the painting and decals.

BTW, in order to not have this as a tail sitter, fill the ENTIRE front section from beneath the cockpit to the nose with weight. The back end is heavy!

Hasegawa provides white decals for most of the surface areas. From past experience, I opted to paint them white instead. The decals for these kits are hard and brittle. I knew they would not conform to curved edges without cracking. You're going to have to touch up the leading edges anyway, so save yourself the headache and paint them white yourself.

If you do go with the white decals, don't add the twin fins until after you decal them. There are two decals that are keyed with openings that fit into locating tabs on the airframe.

There are relatively few decals if you go the painting route and you can decal the entire kit in a few hours. One major issue you will run into are the two rainbow colored stripes that adorn both sides of the fuselage. You will have to remove almost all the protrusions sticking out from the sides. I was only able to save one duct(?) on the starboard side. Everything else had to go.

The L-band antenna on the starboard side was also very problematic. There is no getting around the rainbow stripe going across it so CAREFULLY make some incisions on it to match the outline of the attachment point. If you use a ton of setting solution, the decal should stretch and snuggle without any noticeable gaps. If any appear, each of the small anime figures are separate so they could be moved over to help hide any defects.

So, in the end, the kit turned out nice - but it was a lot of work to get there. As far as the choice of kit, horrible! The decals are nice if you are very careful with them. It's my wife's favorite A-10 that I have built (out of four), but then she always picks the anime ones! If you're a completionist like I am, then you'll want this Idolm@ster kit. If not, I'd definitely say skip. This is the least detailed one of the bunch and the kit is terrible.