Howdy Rmanaseri, Chris,
First off, please allow me to welcome both of you to the forums, we are glad to have you here.
Thanks for the kind words about the Helicopter, I really appreciate it.
Now, on to business lol.
Decals....this is another of my favorite hobbies, creating them. How do I do it? Well it all started when I bought a "kit" for making decals. The kit was testors corp decal maker kit which came with a mini-cd program, 3 half sheets of decal paper and a spray on bonding agent or "overcoat". This was a great idea on paper I am sure when they designed this little kit, however, it had very few aircraft decals that I could use, it was mainly designed with model car builders in mind as far as I can tell. So, I never used the program, all I was really after was the bonding agent and the decal paper anyway.
Since the kit was not what had thought it would be, I decided to find all of the ensignia and markings online in google images, save them to my computer, then crop, adjust and otherwise edit them in one of my photo editing programs, I then had to determine the size I needed them to be in order for them to be "in scale" and also fit on the "half-sheets" of decal paper. The easiest way to determine the size the decal should be is to measure an existing decal such as a roundel or numbers from another kit of the same scale as you are wanting to design new decals for. The real trick is getting them in the correct position on the decal paper when you print them. The best way I have found, since I have a photo quality printer which only places the image in certain places on the page, was to first, arrange the decals on a "picture" the size of the decal paper. I then printed a copy of the "picture" containing the "decals" onto a piece of plain paper. I then use four small pieces of tape to place the decal paper over the printed image on the plain paper and place the sheet of paper back in the printer and print the picture/decals again, this time they line up on the blank decal paper. I allow the decal to air dry for a few minutes after printing and then apply several light coats of the spray on bonding agent to the printed decal. ( I have since found out that you can use most any "overcoat spray" like testors gloss coat or testors dull-cote in place of the bonding agent for the decals to keep the ink on the decal from running once the decal is soaked in water).
I hope that my explaination has been helpful, if youneed any more specific answers, feel free to ask and I will try to answer them as best I can.
Now to Chris' Question...
I know that minicraft made the kit I used although it was 1:48th scale, however, I believe they also make a 1:72 version of the MH-60 (the MH-60 is the special ops version of the UH-60, the coast guards jayhawk is designated the HH-60) but, the MH-60 models will not have the coast guard insignia with the model.
Italeri also makes a 1:72 scale model of the MH-60 and if you will look at this link, you can see a conversion of their model into an HH-60 with the use of after market conversion parts and after market decals. 1/72 Italeri USCG MH-60J by Pete Brown .
There are various models of the UH-60 Blackhawk on the market in 1:72, in my personal opinion, I believe the minicraft models are some of the best howeverthat would be for the individual to decide. One main difference between the UH-60 and the MH/HH-60 is the reserve fuel tank locations, on the blackhawk, the tanks are hung low on the helicopter, on the special ops pavehawk and USCG Jayhawk, the reserve tanks are mounted high on pylons to allow for troops to disembark and on the jayhawk to allow the helicopter to get close to the water if needed for rescue missions without the tanks being in the way.
Now I spray painted my version of the jayhawk with "rattle-cans"...ie spray paint cans, after having masked off the design i wanted. I painted the model white overall, allowed to dry and using low tack masking tape, masked the model off to give the desired paint scheme with the red paint. Its not as complicated as it sounds and really didnt take too terribly long to paint and assemble. (As you can see by my original post, I started on the model about 6 am and had the photos posted by 10:18 am that same morning).
Anyway, if you wish to find out more model manufacturers of the Blackhawk and its variants would suggest you search out google, google images or ebay and type in the variant you want....ie 1:72 scale MH-60 Pavehawk, HH-60 Jayhawk, UH-60 Blackhawk model kit. You should find alot of results.
I hope this has been of help to you both, have a good day and again welcome to the forum.
Greg aka GEEDUBBYA (GW)
