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Hi everybody, here's my second completed model for the year. It's the excellent Tamiya 1/48 HIEN, here represented in the colours of the aircraft flown by Regimental Commander Teruhiko Kobayashi. This kind of aircraft was mainly employed to defend homeland Japan from bombing raids during the last phases of WWII, hence the topic title. The build took me a little over than 3 months, just like my last build, coincidentally a Tamiya kit as well - pretty quick, for my standard Here are some details about the build: KIT: TAMIYA 1:48 KAWASAKI Ki-61-Id HIEN (TONY) AIRFRAME: KAWASAKI Ki-61-Id 24 of 244th Sentai, Imperial Japanese Air Force MARKINGS: Hinomarus and blue stripes airbrushed using self made masks; kit decals for all the rest. PAINTS: Tamiya gloss alu and light blue, decanted from rattle cans; Tamiya JA Green for the mottling; Italeri Insignia Red for the tail and Hinomarus, Tamiya Flat Yellow and Red for the wing leading edge bands, Tamiya Flat Brown and Red for the propeller assembly, Lifecolor Giallo Mimetico for the interiors, plus other assorted paints for the interior details. WEATHERING: tempera washes, black for the movable surfaces and hatches, dark grey for the remaining panel lines. Some oil filtering on the red areas and the spinner/propeller AFTERMARKETS: Quickboost resin cannon and machine gun barrels, Quickboost exhausts SCRATCHBUILDING: Seat belts, with wine bottle foil; gunsight reflectors, from clear acetate The kit is up to the excellent Tamiya standards, beautifully engineered and requiring just a bit of filler here and there, and only along the fuselage halves seam. The level of detail doesn't make you feel the need for AM, even in the cockpit area, IMHO - I indulged in the Quickboost resin gun barrels and exhausts set because they are such a prominent feature on this model, and the kit rendition (especially for the nose cannons) isn't on par with the rest of the kit. Here's the WIP thread, in case you are interested in: My thanks to everybody who followed along, supplying help, tips, insights, praises, etc: as usual, you are a wonderful lot! A special thank you to my friend @Gene K for talking me into building this kit and providing a lot of reference material Let's see some pics (beware: a lot of them! )- with one final note: at the very end of the build I had a relevant mishap, enough to compromise the end result (all my fault, BTW). Those who have followed the build already know, for the other viewers I will not mention it, let's see how bad it looks to you. Hint: more visible in the detail pics. All comments welcome Ciao