Ultracast

1/32 WWII American Fighter Pilot: Col. Francis Gabreski

Kit Number: 54008

Reviewed by  Jack Kennedy, IPMS# 12511

MSRP: $16.99 Website: www.ultracast.ca I have reviewed a few figures by Ultracast from Canada and I can honestly say that they keep getting better. This particular piece is of Col. Francis Gabreski, the highest scoring U.S. ace in WWII. Col. Gabreski had attended a few of the meetings of my IPMS chapter on Long Island and gave very interesting talks. He was quite a guy. Not many people know that he was president of the Long Island Rail Road. Having seen him in person many times and having seen a great deal of photos of him, I was curious to see what a figure of him would look like. Mike Good, a noted figure painter and sculptor, did the master for this piece and it is a "spot on" likeness of the real man right down to his prominent nose. The kit consists of four pieces, body, head and two arms and all pieces fit together perfectly. After about 5 minutes of cleanup, I assembled the figure. I primed it with Duplicolor light grey auto primer. After the primer was dry, I painted the figure with Vallejo, Andrea and Model Master acrylic paints. I love these paints as they dry right away and may be painted over if you make a mistake. One color I particularly like is Model Master Leather. When painted on a figure, it looks just like real leather with a slight sheen. It only took me about 2 hours to paint Col. Gabreski once the primer had dried. I would be proud to enter this piece in any contest or stand it next to a 1/32 P-47. Overall, I would highly recommend this kit and any other figures by Ultracast. I look forward to seeing many more fine figures from this terrific company. I wish to thank Ultracast for supplying this kit and IPMS/USA for giving it to me to review.

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