Small Scale Military Headquarters

I was curious to know if any, there is a reason/story why 21st Century Toys made some of their aircraft available as kits and not others that they did pre-painted? I see that all the pre-paints have "21st Century Toys" marked on the bottom of the horizontal stabilizer, so they're just like the kits. I do enjoy these kits, I still have a couple NIB, and compared to other brands for the same size, I think they're a deal.

The thing I really hate is the fact the my favorite aircraft is the Zero, but 21st Century obviously messed these up, with incorrect fuselage, wings, and then for whatever reason I had some A6M2 kits that came with A6M3 cowlings/no drop tank and then a few where they corrected it and included the cowling/tank in a separate baggy.

That may be your answer; perhaps too many mispacks forced them to drop the line. Also, why buy a kit if you can buy one done for you for about the same price?

I have only built the German Opel Blitz, Opel Maultier, and BF109F2-F4 kits and had no issues save one plane was missing its cooling vent - but I used that one as a paint tester so no real harm done. There are obvious accuracy issues and concessions to the more toy-like nature of 21C products but they can turn out nice:


...with the bonus of getting to select your own livery.

And quite frankly, those 21C Opels were sweet to build compared to the 1/35 Italeri version I am working on. There are like three teeny little spots I can apply glue at to hold the cab together. It's like they allowed the only Russian working in the studio to design this kit and the molds for it. If the Tamiya kit wasn't hard to get and north of $50 I would've bought that instead.