Hui's nephews - 12 and 14 years old - had never built a scale model before - so this holiday we went to Xian and I brought two relatively simple models, glue, tools and paint. The models are Italeri's Rafale-M and JAS-39 Gripen, both in 1:72.

So, for three evenings (plus two hours choosing - "this one has two engines so it must go faster. But this one has more weapons" ) we cut, sanded, test-fitted, glued, pulled parts apart en reglued, painted and decalled. The models aren't that good - raised lines, quite some fitting problems, a bit of flash - but it was a fun project to do with the boys. Even though both liked to do it, I have the feeling that only one is interested to maybe build another model.


Haohao, the oldest, painting his Rafale.

One thing was very interesting... the boys - both Chinese - had learned to paint characters with a brush - but they learned to keep the brush as vertical as possible. For model painting the brush is best kept at an angle of course. Even though I had shown them how to do it, and rotated their wrists to keep the brushes correctly, it never took long before the brush was at a perfect 90° angle with the model again.

Looks like a lot of fun, and brings memories when my dad built my first with me. Thanks for sharing.