RC30 Complete

This is my completed Tamiya VFR750R RC30 model kit. I’m not totally happy with it, but perfectionist as I am; I have to admit that it isn’t too bad for my first motorcycle scale model kit. I intend to review the kit as a kit, but first I’d like to mention some of my thoughts in relation to my specific building experience. 

I was really impressed with the quality of the model and the advantages this had in how easy it went together. I only had moulding defect on the entire model and that was just an engine mounting hole in the frame that hadn’t been drilled fully through. All it took to rectify was two seconds with a tiny drill on the dremel. Compared to my experiences with both military scale models and wargaming miniatures, this was a real breath of fresh air. Beyond that though, all the parts meshed together perfectly without trimming (beyond removing moulding lines), reshaping, or using putty to fill gaps.

Another nice touch comes from the clear fairing panels; these mean that you can see your beautifully painted components without them being covered by a fairing. This really appeals to me as someone who spends as much time painting the engine as the fairing or tank. 

Less impressive was the heavy use of decals. The RC30, as a world superbikes homologation bike, only came in the red, white and blue HRC colours. As a perfectionist/bike nerd, I had to have my model in said correct colours. Tamiya seem to have understood that people would want to do this, but that it’s a bit of a stretch to do a three-tone paintjob on a 1/12^th scale body panel (with gold pinstripes between the colours). So instead, there are large red decals so you only need to paint white and blue onto the panels. I had real problems with this; the decals wouldn’t stay on the contours of the panels once they’d dried out, even when I had them flat with no bubbles or wrinkles. Still, apart from that, I really like the abundance of logos as points of detail, even down to the dial faces of the clocks and the tyre pressure info sticker on the chain guard.

Overall, it’s been a fun experience and really highlighted for me the different skills needed for military, fantasy or wargaming modelling as opposed to scale modelling showroom appearance vehicles. It’s been (at the risk of sounding corny) really educational, as I’ve learned things as I’ve gone along that I’ll be able to take into my next project, namely that it’s worth just priming entire sprues to begin with (not me being dense, I was worried about the areas that wouldn’t be primed when I cut the pieces from the sprue) and that the airbrush is worth its weight in gold for the smooth, even finish it can give. Still, as fun as it was, I think I need to do a few warhammer models to cleanse the palette, since I can run wild, before I can dive back into doing another bike.