Navy Bird

Hi mates! I’ve attached several photos of my finished model of the new Airfix Zero kit. It really was a delight to build. Some highlights: Taking advice from Nick Millman's blog, I used the kit decals but painted the model in a trainer scheme, with orange-yellow (or is it yellow-orange?) on the bottom. For this colour, I mixed 50% Gunze H24 Orange-Yellow with 50% Gunze H34 Cream Yellow. I post shaded the underside panels with a lighter version of this same colour mix. The top side is Gunze H59 IJN Green, but with a lot of post shading with lighter versions of that colour. The burnt umber panel line wash was done with artist’s acrylics. The cowling and upper deck behind the cockpit are painted in a black-blue mixture that I made from Testors’ ModelMaster paints. I don’t have the mixture on that, as I did a lot of adjustments to get a colour that I liked. I added some extra details in the already quite nice cockpit that Airfix provided. I drilled out the lightening holes in the seat, and added some to the rear bulkhead. I wanted to have an open cockpit to show off the detail, so I cut off the front windscreen and rear canopy from the Airfix part, and then used a portion of a Falcon vacuform canopy for the sliding part. Rudder pedals and seat belts came from an ancient True Details set. The pitot tube on the port wing was replaced with a small hypodermic needle. Paint chipping was done with a PrismaColor silver pencil. The prop blades are Alclad Aluminum on the front, and Gunze H47 Red Brown on the back. The wing I.D. stripes are Gunze H24. The areas that are aotake were painted by first applying Alclad aluminum, and then misting a mixture of Gunze Clear Blue and Gunze Clear Green over the top. I posed the wingtips folded, and added some photoetch from the spares box to make the inside of the wing fold area more “busy.” Since this was a well-used trainer aircraft, my artistic license let me mix a bunch of Mitsubishi and Nakajima characteristics. For instance, I used Gunze H303 for the Mitsubishi cockpit green, I painted the wheel wells with the underside colour such as would be the case for a Mitsubishi built plane, but I painted aotake to the inside of the gear doors as would be seen on a Nakajima plane. The WIP thread can be found here. Hope you like it! Cheers, Bill Cheers, Bill

Very nice job, Duncan! And to think that I donated my old Hasegawa Lightning kit because I wanted to do the Trumpeter one instead! Look where that got me! It looks like you removed the raised panel lines, but I can't tell if you did any rescribing. From looking at your result, I don't think it needed any! Cheers, Bill

Great job! The weathering is subtle, very well done. Cheers, Bill

Nice job, I used that decal sheet myself a few years back. Did you catch the "nose art" hidden in the tiger stripes? Cheers, Bill

There are no words I can add! Simply stunning!

Hi mates, Next stop, that creative masking I spoke of. Need to make sure that I don't mask directly over the top of the transfers. The masking looks a bit odd, but it did the trick. I painted a base coat of white and followed with Gunze H24 Orange-Yellow, which I think is a good match for the Japanese color C1. After carefully removing the masking material, I applied a light burnt umber wash made from artist's acrylics in the panel lines, and a black wash in the wheel wells. I mounted the main tires and landing gear doors. I set the prop on for some photos, and it looks like we're heading into the home stretch: Not too much remaining now, just the wing tips, the final varnish, maybe some pastels for the exhaust stains, etc. Oh, and I've been saving the dreadful canopy surgery until last. Thank goodness I have three canopies (one from the kit and two vacuform). I should be able to come up with at least one set for showing the canopy open, said the ham-fisted razor saw man. Cheers, Bill PS. Awfully dark outside today. They're predicting several inches of rain and winds up to 65 MPH later this afternoon and tonight. Yikes.

Very nice indeed, Jonners. Quite sweet, actually! I love these unusual types that you don't see that often, thanks for sharing! Cheers, Bill

Absolutely stunning! Libor, you have once again created a masterpiece for us to admire. I have this kit in my stash, so I know how small it is! Fantastic work, mate!! Cheers, Bill

Wow, I wish I had an opportunity to work alongside a master like Artur! We need to arrange a modelling clinic for the next time I visit Europe! Cheers, Bill

Quite nice work this is, Col. How come I haven't seen this one before? I must pay better attention! Love the extra detail work you've added, and this is sure to be a great tribute to your Dad. These personal touches really bring it all home, if you know what I mean. Cheers, Bill

Ha! LOL Seriously, Artur does some absolutely amazing work! There are at least 5 or 6 effects on this Seahawk model that I've never tried, or if I have the results haven't been this good. Yes, it may be over-weathered for a Seahawk, but the weathering techniques shown here can certainly be used on other aircraft that do get "down and dirty." Artur always gives us such great models to learn from! I had a chance to see a Seahawk for the first time last week at Gatow (Luftwaffe Museum). Surprised at how small it was! Cheers, Bill

LOL! I've cocked up more than my share of model parts! Plus, I plan my mistakes so that they are either on the bottom, or inside where nobody can see them. Cheers, Bill

I do a similar thing with my liquid cement (Tenax 7R). I can't tell you how many times I tipped over an open bottle of it, as well as the Micro decal setting solutions. I really wish they would switch their bottle shape to be a bit more "bottom heavy." Now, on to the model - fantastic job! I have this one on my list for 1:72, but I haven't decided on the Trumpy kit or the CMR resin kit. Probably the Trumpy kit, as it's quite good. I wish Trumpy would partner with Monochrome more often - it sure led to a great kit here! Cheers, Bill

Hi mates, Time for another update. I've added the transfers, and I must say that the Cartograf decals which Airfix have supplied with this kit are excellent! I used my normal decal solvents (Micro-Set and Micro-Sol) and the markings snuggled down into the panel lines quite nicely. I was expecting some difficulties as the panel lines on the Zero are deeper than others I've seen in this scale - but no problems at all! Here are a few pix: Looks like I guessed right for the diameter of the white circles that I painted on the bottom of the wing. The picture of the real plane that is posted over at Nick Millman's excellent Aviation of Japan blog clearly shows a white outline to the hinomaru. As soon as I finished the transfers, I realized that I forgot to paint the yellow I.D. stripes on the leading edge of the wings! D'oh! The kit includes transfers for these stripes, but I want a different color as I don't think the kit stripes are "orange-yellow" enough, based on the samples of C-1 over at Nick's blog and posted here on Britmodeller (link in post #1). So it looks like I have some creative masking to do! Once I get the I.D. stripes on, I'll add the main tires, do some detail painting on the arresting hook and tail wheel, and add the landing gear doors. I also need to finish the wing tips and mount them in the folded position. I also intend to do a panel line wash with Flory's Dark Dirt. Airfix supplied just a one-piece canopy, but I want to model the canopy open. I have a couple of Falcon vacuform canopies for the Zero, so I also have some careful razor saw work ahead. It's a good weekend for modelling here in Rottenchester, NY. We're getting hit with the storm that's coming in from the west and is supposed to merge with what's left of Hurricane Sandy to make a mega-storm. We're expecting a few inches of rain this weekend - all outdoor activities are off for me. Fire up the compressor and let's shoot some air! Cheers, Bill

I found the Trumpeter actuator links (or whatever they're supposed to be called) were very weak (thin) and easy to break. I liked the looks of the Matchbox parts better, especially the folding joint in the middle. Plus, I broke one of the Trumpeter parts, so I had to replace it! Cheers, Bill

Yet another masterpiece! How am I going to do this on my Braille scale kit? Man, you guys keep making my modelling life more difficult every day! Cheers, Bill

Now that's a beautiful job. Thanks for sharing, these photos will really help my upcoming TSR.2 project. Cheers, Bill

Superb job! Great weathering, you've achieved the "Goldilocks" look - not too much, not too little, but just right! Whose kit? Cheers, Bill

That's a keeper! I continue to be amazed with the Canberra, what an incredibly versatile aircraft to have been deployed in so many different operational roles. That's a sign of true aeronautical genius behind its design. Cheers, Bill

Incredible work going on here, General! Utterly amazing and all that! The PE vortex generators are brilliant. You mentioned a scheme from 1976 or so, and I seem to recall reading somewhere (probably in the instructions to the CMR Bucc I recently built) that the fifth vortex generator (counting out from the wing root) was removed in Mod. 1188 due to relocation of the outer pylons for the Martel missiles. I think Mod. 1188 happened in the late 60s or thereabouts, I'm sure that someone more knowledgeable than I can provide the correct date and whether the mod was applied to all airframes. Cheers, Bill

It's statements like this one from the Wikipedia article on Testors that confuse the issue: "Later that same decade (70s), the Italian model kit manufacturer Italeri was acquired, further expanding Testor's line of plastic model kits, usually repackaged with photographs rather than paintings on the box." There is no cited reference for this statement, so I think we can chalk it up to Internet mythology! Cheers, Bill

OK, so where we we? Ah yes, according to a photo of this actual aircraft that I saw over on the Aviation of Japan website, the hinomarus on the bottom of the wing had a white surround to them. The kit decals are not like this, so I headed for the spares box - but no luck. I then decided to paint white circles on the bottom at the appropriate size, and put the red circle over that. If I did my measurements right, I should end up with a nice little white edge. I used an old drafting template to cut the correct size circle out of some wide Tamiya tape, which I used as a mask. After painting the white, I think she looks pretty good: Next, I mixed 75% Gunze Clear Blue and 25% Gunze Clear Green, and thinned it way down to make my "aotake." I used Alclad aluminum as a base, and then sprayed two very light misting coats of the Gunze mixture, and now we a nice representation of the aotake protective coating used by Japan: The pictures don't show the "clear" aspect of this paint so well, but the effect is there. I like the color, and I plan on doing a light wash as part of the final weathering. That's it for today! Cheers, Bill

Thanks for the nice comments, guys! I appreciate them very much. As far as the road to recovery goes, I'm still having severe pain that's coming from my lower back. I had another myleogram (spinal tap, and no that's not a band) a week ago, and it looks like L1-L2 and L5-S1 both need some work. Surgery number nine looms...but that's OK if it fixes the damn problem! I switched to a new doctor, who is very highly regarded in these parts. Methinks my old doctor was a bit of a quack. The new guy put me on six weeks of physiotherapy, but the problem actually got worse, my pain meds were increased, etc. The same old cycle... Cheers, Bill

Looks very nice! I have to admit that my timing is awful, as Eduard always seems to release these things when I'm almost finished with my model! Cheers, Bill

That's great John! I can instantly see why the kit part needs to be replaced, as the fairing between the exhausts doesn't protrude far enough. Cheers, Bill