Aichi D3A1 Val - Fujimi 1/48

[Andrea Manfroi]

Hello modellers, here you are my last one. Honestly the Fujimi kit has nothing to do with the same subject from Hasegawa. Internals are almost zero, clear parts are thick and engine details are really poor. Anyway I had a lot of fun scratch building a lot of stuff in the cockpit and on the engine(gun sights, cowling flaps, radio equipment etc..). I've also cut flaps to put them in lowered positions as well as tail controls surfaces.

The colour scheme is the very popular "Pearl Harbor" style and despite it was not very original I decided to stick with it.

The biggest fun has been painting the tail. I don't know how many meters of masking tape I used!

All colours used are Tamiya acrylics applied with airbrush. Finishing is form Tamiya spray can.

Any comment and suggestion to improve is always welcome.

Enjoy the pictures.

Cheers

Andy

[batcode]

very nice work, looks great

[WildeSau75]

Ciao Andrea,

Very nice build of the Pearl Harbour attacker - like it.

Especially the painting is well done. Being a beginner, can you tell me, how you achieved the different looking color tones of the green? Is it just slightly lighter green that you applied on some spots? If yes, how did you do that specifically? I.e. what did you use for lightening the color, any special rule of where to apply the lighter spots and do they come before the darker ones or ontop?

Also the tail looks very nice - is it an oil wash that you applied to give the red and yellow that dark look?

Sorry, question over question but being a newbie, I stick to single or two tone color schemes and would love to know how to spice them up a bit.

Thanks mate.

Cheers,

Michael

[Andrea Manfroi]

Hi Michael,

I'm very pleased about your questions and more than happy to give you some details.

About painting, first of all I applied a layer of primer (using Tamiya spray can) then i made the so called "pre shading". To do this I painted lines with flat black (sometimes I use also a very dark gray) using the airbrush and following more or less panels and rivets lines.

Then, I sprayed few layers of dark green. The zones painted during pre-shading remain darker then the rest and they give you the effect you're looking for. In "work in progress" forum you will find a lot of great examples much better than mine.

To paint the tail I started from the blue band. Once painted the area I masked it with tape and continued with yellow bands. After masking also yellow bands then finally I painted the red colour. Then I applied a layer of clear gloss paint (Tamiya spray can) to allow a better application f decals. Later on I washed with oil colours highly diluted (a mix of black and light brown). Finally a coat of Matt clear varnish (Tamiya spray can too) fixed everything.

Hope you'll find this useful.

Cheers

Andy

[WildeSau75]

Hi Michael,

I'm very pleased about your questions and more than happy to give you some details.

About painting, first of all I applied a layer of primer (using Tamiya spray can) then i made the so called "pre shading". To do this I painted lines with flat black (sometimes I use also a very dark gray) using the airbrush and following more or less panels and rivets lines.

Then, I sprayed few layers of dark green. The zones painted during pre-shading remain darker then the rest and they give you the effect you're looking for. In "work in progress" forum you will find a lot of great examples much better than mine.

To paint the tail I started from the blue band. Once painted the area I masked it with tape and continued with yellow bands. After masking also yellow bands then finally I painted the red colour. Then I applied a layer of clear gloss paint (Tamiya spray can) to allow a better application f decals. Later on I washed with oil colours highly diluted (a mix of black and light brown). Finally a coat of Matt clear varnish (Tamiya spray can too) fixed everything.

Hope you'll find this useful.

Cheers

Andy

Ciao Andy,

Thanks - that's definitely helping. Thought you applied different shades of green to get the effect - but preshading seems to be the trick.

May I ask with what you diluted the oil colors?

What's next on your workbench?

Cheers,

Michael

[Andrea Manfroi]

HI Michael,

for oil colours I normally use turpentine or sometimes a synthetic solvent. I always test the solvent on a piece of sprue first, just to make sure it will not corrode the plastic.

I've currently on the bench the Hasegawa 1/48 Kawanishi Shiden. You will see pictures posted in a couple of weeks.

Cheers

Andy

[RMCS]

Nicely done