1:32 Tornado GR.1 - 3D-Printed & Coloured Interior on Decal Paper with 3D-printed Resin Parts (for Revell Kits)

A low-level attack across an airfield

The Tornado GR.1 was the attack version of a three-nation project in which Britain, West Germany and Italy took part. The variable geometry wing gave it two faces: spread out for takeoff from a short runway, swept back for flight just above the ground at a speed at which the terrain runs under the fuselage like a belt. The machine was trained for precisely this task: to fly under the radar cover and strike the enemy's airfield before its fighters got into the air. The British machines went through their hardest test at the beginning of 1991, when they operated from minimal altitude against well-defended targets.

How the three-dimensional interior works

This is not a classic decal. The color layer is printed in relief, so the instruments, the levers and the frames have real height, and the whole surface is transferred onto the parts of the kit just like a decal, by soaking and sliding into place. The result is a pilot's space that has depth and colors finished in one step, without laborious painting of individual dials. The package moreover holds printed resin parts which supply what a flat surface cannot manage.

Where it pays off most

At a large scale the cabin is the most watched place on a model. A two-seat arrangement means two sets of panels and twice the work that hand painting would swallow. The procedure is straightforward: the parts of the kit are painted in a base shade, left to dry thoroughly, and only then comes the transfer. It pays to work in sections and to seat each piece before you set about the next. The set is prepared for a kit from the maker Revell.