Hi everybody!
This is my first submission here on ARC. The model represents a
"Frank" of the 1st Chutai, 102nd Hiko Sentai based on Kyushu
Island during April 1945. This plane showed a particularly heavy
weathering, due to the poor quality of Japanese paints during WWII and
intense use in harsh climatic conditions. It also had some
substituted panels left unpainted.
The kit is
very well done. The only relatively major flaw are the vinyl grommets for
the main landing gear: they simply don't work as advertised. Better ditch
them and glue the landing gear in place the good old way. I've built the kit out of the
box and only added spark plug wiring to
the engine, some tubes and pipes in the cockpit and brake lines to the
landing gear, all made by copper wire of various diameters.
Click on
images below to see larger images
About the
painting, I've followed the indications of an article appeared in the n.23
/ Nov. 1995 issue of "Tuttomodellismo", an Italian magazine
unfortunately not on sale anymore.
Basically it's an undercoat of Tamiya XF-16 flat aluminium on which are
first overpainted the hinomarus, the anti-glare panel, the yellow bands on
the wings and the tail symbols. Then, after having masked them along with
the substituted panels, I've painted the camo scheme with Tamiya XF-13 JA
green. On the underside I've selectively painted some panels with Humbrol
aluminium, silver and mix of alumium + a drop of gloss black to give it a
more realistic natural metal look.
Paint chipping was made by stripping off the green paint with bits of
scotch tape and Letraset tape for the smaller parts. I know I've
exaggerated a bit with it, but I had fun and in my opinion the effect is
convincing enough.
Exhaust and gun stains are a mix of Humbrol matt black and brown. Panels
were profiled with a wash of black, raw umber and burnt sienna oils and
shaded with grey and sepia inks sprayed along Post-it edges.
Lorenzo
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