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Another 1/72 kit I completed a little while ago, this time in October of 2022. This was the first time I had ever done a Hasagawa kit and I instantly loved the difference in quality in comparison to other brands I had done earlier. I was given this kit along with another Hasagawa Shoki, and these may be what also led me to this forum originally, since it was here that I discovered the absolute rabbit-hole that is Japanese paint schemes of the Second World War. Building this took very little time, but the research into painting it was another story entirely. I came across Nick Millman both in this forum and his own site, which I still use as a reference any time I do a Japanese craft. I painted this is Tamiya Chrome Silver as the base, then my standard AK Real Colors' IJN Green Black (which may be a little too dark). Were I to re-do this kit, I would also repaint the nose and spinner in a darker mahogany than this more red-based version. I painted the camo with an airbrush free-hand, but nowadays I would probably use stick-tac to mark off the spots. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Here is the Ki-61 Hien, codenamed Tony by the Allies due to them at first mistaking it for a German Bf109, and later as an Italian Macchi C.202. The Ki-61 was a lightly armed general-purpose fighter. They entered service during the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service New Guinea campaign, and--due in no small part to being rushed into production--the Hien suffered many engine issues and failures, resulting in a large amount of non-combat losses. Aside from these, the planes did well initially until the Allies re-adapted. Apparently an early way for an Allied plane to escape a Japanese tail would be to fall into a steep dive, which the Japanese planes couldn't pull off. The Hien however could, and this naturally caused some distress among the Allied pilots. Unfortunately for the Japanese, many of these planes were destroyed before they could get off the ground due to Allied air raids on bases that were not sufficiently protected by anti-aircraft defences. The Hien eventually would be used to defend the Home Islands, and in the infamous Kamikaze attacks.

Have been looking forward to this GB since it made it through the bunfight. I really like the US Navy’s classic grey over white plus colourful squadron markings of the time. The first of my two planned builds is Hasegawa’s 1/48 F-8E Crusader.

We join this work in progress... in progress (I started before joining BM). Last year I did a Hasagawa F-104 from about 1986 (ugh, terrible kit) and used a decal set from Belcher Bits to make it a gray/green camo, low viz CF-104. In the course of doing that, I decided I really liked the early NMF CF-104s and the decal set included decals from that era. So I bought this kit. For the most part I've had good experiences with Hasagawa kits. This one.... isn't quite one of them so far. The build has stalled out; I'd hoped it would be an easy build, maybe a couple of weeks, but it's been over a month because I'm procrastinating fixing the seam between the front half and back half , and because I still can't quite figure out how I want to apply the Alclad (This build also is part of my on-going quest of getting a realistic natural metal finish. More on that later though). Now, here is where I've gotten so far: "she doesn't look like much, but she's got it where it counts!" Well, maybe. The detail is top notch, and by and large the fit is really nice, with a couple major exceptions. First, the panel containing the cannon was a separate piece and didn't fit well, so I had to use super glue to fill in the gaps and sand it flush. Second, there is a front half and a back half, and when I glued them together, there was overlap. it didn't matter how I positioned them, there was overlap somewhere: It may not look like much, but I'm going to have to bust out the files to get that flush! Another gripe is that the plastic looks like it sunk a bit, so at the seams on the bottom, it is a little concave. Luckily it's only on the bottom because I filled and smoothed it out to the best of my ability, but I'm not crazy about how it turned out. The cockpit had the option to paint the instrument panel or apply a decal. I decided to paint it: The panel was painted Dark Gull Gray with black, olive green and red in appropriate places. I just used a magnifying glass and a tiny brush. The side panels are black with Testors Steel dry-brushed on. My reference photos showed a dark grime around the outer parts of the head rest and seat cushions, so I tried to replicate that by using tamiya weathering pastels around the edges. I've already painted the wings (Mr. Color, white on top, Light Blue on the bottom) and black-based them, using Mr. Surfacer 1500 black as a primer and then marbling on the white (or blue) and then misting on the color to blend it all together. It's a little too subtle in the picture, but looks about right in real life. I also did the fuel tanks and horizontal stabilizer, which were all red. I had a hard time matching the red: I thought it should be Chevy engine red, but that was too orange. So I put a light coat of Ford engine red and that seemed to match the decals OK. I also black based these: I had to paint and assemble the main gears. These I primered with Tamiya gloss black spray, and put a coat of Alclad Polished aluminum on, followed by a very light coat of Alclad aluminum to cut the shine down a bit. I coated that with Alclad Aqua Gloss, then used a wash of black oil paint in paint thinner to bring out the details. When this had dried, I sealed it with Testors Metallizer sealer. I've found that Alclad will pull up with tape once in a while, so I try to do all the other colors first and mask them before doing the alclad. That's why the nose, intakes, and red rectangles before the intakes are masked in these pictures. Finally, I did the metal in the back part of the fuselage, because it looks different from the rest of the body: Same routine here as with the main gear bay: Black gloss, followed by Alclad stainless steel. On the left in this picture is the stainless steel. The darker part to the right, I put a very light over coat of Alclad steel and the lighter looking part has a light coat of Alclad dark aluminum. I think the light part is too light, so I may have to look at that again. Next steps: Mask the metal in back, mask the gear bays, and fix that seam in the middle (ugh). Then it will be time to Alclad this bad boy!

Hi everyone May I present my Hasagawa 1/48 Hawker Typhoon. I started this project 4 years ago and for one reason or another I put it on the back burner and eventually forgot it. But that was then and this is now so here she is... Thank you Iain.