El Presidente Decals 1/72 MiG-21 & K-8 Karakorum
By Scott Hackney
El Presidente Decals, Strange name for a decal company from Germany with decals printed in England. A strange name, but these are well researched nicely printed decals. El Presidente’s first two offering could be described as something old and something new, but even that fails to give his Excellency the credit due.
MiG 21s are the subject of the first sheet and you might think that MiG 21s had been done, and over done, but most of these MiGs have never been done. The ten different schemes on the sheet are all late model MiGs certainly designed with the Zvezda kit in mind. Every scheme is colorful and most unfamiliar. For example, look at the Nigerian MiG, not your everyday subject. The sample page also illustrates the other good news about El Presidente and that’s the instructions. The full color booklet contains a page with a color profile and history for each subject.
The letters are a breakout of the style and conditions of the aircraft –gloss, flat, weathered, hard edged camouflage, etc.; everything a modeler needs to know is covered.
The decals themselves were printed by Fantasy Printshop and have good clarity, depth, and are all in register.
I’m not normally a 1/72 scale builder, but El Presidente’s Decals has me looking for a Fishbed!
The second sheet is what drew me to El Presidente. This is the something new –K-8 Karakorums in International Service. The new Trumpeter K-8 is one of their nicest 1/72nd kits, but the schemes are boring. The El Presidente sheet features eight different aircraft from Burma, Sri Lanka, Sudan, you get the picture. Once again the Fantasy Printshop decals and the color booklet make this a marvelous sheet full of possibilities.
El Presidente decals are available through his website. My decals arrived from Germany promptly. Check out the website for current and future releases. El Presidente professes to be nineteen years so are we seeing the beginning of another great modeling entrepreneur – I hope so!