Double Japanese build! Ki-44 and Ki-84 -- 1/72

[opus999]

8 hours ago, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

Hoping this helps.. I will endeavor to keep looking though. 
 

https://modelersalliance.org/threads/don-gentiles-spitfire-mk-v.154313/

 

About 1/2 way down the page (15th photo) there is a full on starboard photo of Gentile’s MD*T. 

 

Dennis: thanks for the link!  The picture that you refer to is actually the one that got me started on this question!   Notice how the "T" is right under the cockpit?  All the builds and profiles I've seen (including the most recent Eduard offering) show it in the position that you usually see squadron codes on British A/C.  So, do they know something I don't, or were they just making a logical guess....   So, I am curious if the "MD" is under the cockpit on the other side?

 

Another interesting thing to note in that picture is the pattern of camouflage on the starboard wing looks non-standard.  Most profiles show it as the standard camo scheme (although there were 2 standards, I thought I read somewhere?) with the old roundel painted over.  This picture doesn't look like the roundel is painted over.  Its almost like the whole wing (or at least the outer part of it) was repainted entirely.  🤔  Wow.  questions...questions...

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

2 hours ago, opus999 said:

The picture that you refer to is actually the one that got me started on this question!   Notice how the "T" is right under the cockpit?  All the builds and profiles I've seen (including the most recent Eduard offering) show it in the position that you usually see squadron codes on British A/C.  So, do they know something I don't, or were they just making a logical guess....   So, I am curious if the "MD" is under the cockpit on the other side?

The main issue is what time frame are you modeling the plane. Still in the eagle squadron (RAF) or after transfer to USAAF ? If RAF I think the codes would follow the traditional style. I remember reading somewhere that at some point in time after the squadrons were returned to U.S. control. The U.S.A.A.F. used the RAF codes, but changed the positioning on the aircraft. Adopting the placement of squadron ahead of the insignia/pilots initial or chosen letter after insignia. Usually how you see codes on P-47’s, P-51’s, and Bombers. Where as the RAF was Squadron, roundel, then individual code the same either side. Thats why you get the off-set look from above. 

 

2 hours ago, opus999 said:

Another interesting thing to note in that picture is the pattern of camouflage on the starboard wing looks non-standard.  Most profiles show it as the standard camo scheme (although there were 2 standards, I thought I read somewhere?) with the old roundel painted over.  This picture doesn't look like the roundel is painted over.  Its almost like the whole wing (or at least the outer part of it) was repainted entirely.  🤔  Wow.  questions...questions...

So I have this photo and think its a close match for the gentile Scheme ? 
 

Not 100% sure but think its the same or very similar. 

[opus999]

1 hour ago, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

The main issue is what time frame are you modeling the plane. Still in the eagle squadron (RAF) or after transfer to USAAF ?

 

Good point, I guess I didn't say, did I?  It would be USAAF -- just like the one in the picture you sent the link to...

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

2 minutes ago, opus999 said:

 

Good point, I guess I didn't say, did I?  It would be USAAF -- just like the one in the picture you sent the link to...

Then I would say its a matter of dealer’s choice here. You can do it in early markings (photo), or later markings like they’d have worn on the Jugs & Mustangs. Either way it would be correct pending date of use. 

Edited August 20, 2021 by Corsairfoxfouruncle

[opus999]

My new Fw-190A-7 build is at this link

[opus999]

Since I decided to let the red on my Fw-190 dry overnight, I had some time and cut the hinamaru masks for the Tojo:

 

 

 

Despite the circle cutter, it was easier said than done.  Next I will paint the gray Mr. Surfacer 1500 over that, and then the white bandages.  Maybe when the Fw-190 is done.

 

That's all for now!

 

[Terry1954]

Catching up on this one also and love the way the Tojo and Frank are coming along. 

 

I visited Japan during spring 2019 (one of my sons married his Japanese girlfriend) and during the three week trip picked up a few nice 1/72 models, most notably a couple of FineMolds Ki-100's (one bubble canopy and one "fast back", a FineMolds A7M2 (Sam), and a Tamiya Kawanishi Shiden (George). They are lovely models. You are inspiring me to make a start on one of them!

 

Terry

[opus999]

21 hours ago, Terry1954 said:

Catching up on this one also and love the way the Tojo and Frank are coming along. 

 

I visited Japan during spring 2019 (one of my sons married his Japanese girlfriend) and during the three week trip picked up a few nice 1/72 models, most notably a couple of FineMolds Ki-100's (one bubble canopy and one "fast back", a FineMolds A7M2 (Sam), and a Tamiya Kawanishi Shiden (George). They are lovely models. You are inspiring me to make a start on one of them!

 

Terry

Thanks Terry!  I've actually got the Fine Molds Ki-100 bubble canopy on the bench right now as next in line!  Unless my paint order arrives first, and then I'll complete these.  I bought an A7M probably 25 years ago, but it's a MPM, so I'm not in a hurry to work on it seeing as how much work I had to put into my A-36...

 

You should start one!  That A7M2 would be a sight to see....  

[opus999]

Finally feel like I'm getting some traction here!

 

Last night I was able to finish masking the Frank

 

 

...after which I covered the red overspray with Mr. Surfacer 1500

 

 

 

...added some marbling behind the "bandages" using a dark gray...

 

 

...sprayed on an off white (Mr. Color 311)...

 

 

...and Ta Da!

 

 

I was already putting the protective masking on the Frank's "bandages" when I remembered I had to take a picture. I fretted a bit about the red -- it seems much darker against the white than it did against the olive green of my Hien (imagine that), but I compared it to some Tamiya Ki-61 decals and the Fine Molds Ki-100 decals and the color was a perfect match to the Ki-100 and really, really close to the Ki-61, so I think I will go with that.

 

Not all is coming up roses, though.  Two steps forward and one step back it seems -- when I started to put the protective masking on the Tojo's fuselage, I couldn't get the white bands to line up.  That's when I discovered the hinamaru on the starboard side is about 2mm farther back than the one on the port.  I swear I measured them against panel lines to make sure they were correct, but I wonder if I accidentally measured the Frank twice? So, I will need to re paint the port side of the Tojo before moving on... Grr....

[VT Red Sox Fan]

Opus my man, I totally get the dry spells--it seems to happen to me more than I like but I remind myself if you are not doing this for fun, it ain't a hobby right 🙂  I really like how you are sorting out the national markings--these are going to look sharp!  Best, Erwin

[2996 Victor]

3 hours ago, VT Red Sox Fan said:

Opus my man, I totally get the dry spells--it seems to happen to me more than I like but I remind myself if you are not doing this for fun, it ain't a hobby right 🙂  I really like how you are sorting out the national markings--these are going to look sharp!  Best, Erwin

Absolutely right, Erwin - when the fun stops, stop (for a while) and take a break.

 

Cheers,

Mark

[2996 Victor]

On 03/09/2021 at 03:32, opus999 said:

Two steps forward and one step back it seems

Oh, how frustrating Sounds exactly like the sort of thing I do: measure twice, cut once, then go back and  start again! But you'll get it sorted out with no problem and no harm done

 

In other news, the colour of the hinomarus looks spot on: an intense shade of red but not too bright. Excellent! And the slightly off-white bandages with the marbling are masterful.

 

Cheers,

Mark

[opus999]

Got quite a bit done today, but it was all mask, paint, mask, paint, lather, rinse, repeat....

 

The oldest is working all weekend and the rest of the family went to the family cabin in the mountains, so lots of time to myself...

 

First up last night I had to try and fix the Hinamaru that was too far back.  Here it is masked in the correct position.

 

 

After the masking was removed, I had a slightly oblong hinamaru.

 

 

Unfortunately, there was some ricochet overspray on the other side so my "bandage" was slightly pink. 😠 So I decided to bag it for the night since it was getting late...

 

Today, before completing the hinamaru fix, I had to paint the anti-glare first because it goes over the "bandage" on the Tojo.  

 

 

After that.... you guessed it... more masking!

 

 

I masked over the hinamaru and repainted the white

 

 

 

The final couple tasks tonight were to paint the black walkway on the Tojo and the yellow leading edges on both.

 

 

I'm going to get a little cheeky and try to paint the yellow lines on the Frank's wings.  If it doesn't work out, I still have the decals

 

 

More tomorrow!

 

[opus999]

  

3 hours ago, VT Red Sox Fan said:

Opus my man, I totally get the dry spells--it seems to happen to me more than I like but I remind myself if you are not doing this for fun, it ain't a hobby right 🙂  I really like how you are sorting out the national markings--these are going to look sharp!  Best, Erwin

 

True words Erwin... it's supposed to be fun!  Thanks for the encouragement.

9 minutes ago, 2996 Victor said:

Oh, how frustrating Sounds exactly like the sort of thing I do: measure twice, cut once, then go back and  start again! But you'll get it sorted out with no problem and no harm done

 

In other news, the colour of the hinomarus looks spot on: an intense shade of red but not too bright. Excellent! And the slightly off-white bandages with the marbling are masterful.

 

Cheers,

Mark

 

I'm glad the hinamarus and bandages look good to an outside observer... sometimes I can be so amazed that I pulled it off that I'm not objective enough to say... er... should those be blue????  

 

As you can see above I manged to sort out the hinomaru repair despite my best efforts to really screw it up! 🙄  🤣 

[Learstang]

20 minutes ago, 2996 Victor said:

measure twice, cut once

 

Surely you've got that wrong; I've always thought it was measure once, cut twice? Hmmm, now that I think of it, perhaps that's why my models take so long to complete (large empires have risen and fallen in the time it takes me to complete a model). By the way, back on topic, nice work on the fighters! I have both these kits (I've done quite a bit of work on the Tojo - always one of my favourite Japanese fighters), and I may just be tempted to start work on them again.

 

Regards,

 

Jason

Edited September 4, 2021 by Learstang

[opus999]

1 hour ago, Learstang said:

 

Surely you've got that wrong; I've always thought it was measure once, cut twice? Hmmm, now that I think of it, perhaps that's why my models take so long to complete (large empires have risen and fallen in the time it takes me to complete a model). By the way, back on topic, nice work on the fighters! I have both these kits (I've done quite a bit of work on the Tojo - always one of my favourite Japanese fighters), and I may just be tempted to start work on them again.

 

Regards,

 

Jason

My dad said there was never enough time to do it right, but always time to do it again....

[opus999]

A little more work yesterday-- First I re-primered the models, the Tojo in gray and the Frank in black.  I wanted to make sure that the Tojo had a uniform color.  I don't think it matters with the TS-30 silver leaf paint I'm going to use, but I didn't want to take any chances.  The Frank I wanted black based for the painting I had planned.  The Mr. Surfacer 1500 black was acting a little strange and I didn't quite get the nice finish I usually do.  It's perfectly fine for a dull olive drab finish, though.  The gray Mr. Surfacer behaved normally and I have a nice finish for the bare metal finish I have planned.

 

 

You'll notice I'd already started marbling the Frank when I thought to take a picture.

 

@VT Red Sox Fan Erwin -- I see you're planning to use some mottling masks on your current build.  I hope they work as well for you as they do for me.  I love mine!

 

 

I mottled on Olive Green and then did random mottled patches of Mr. Color's dark earth, and Russian radome green (which seems like an extreme color, but it is not extreme at all once covered with some OD).  I used Mr. Color Field Gray (2) on the control surfaces.  Then I masked some panels to paint propeller brown and RLM 81.  I found on my P-51 and A-36 builds that the subtle color shift in the OD top coat adds to the worn look.

 

 

And once the "pre-toning/pre-shading" is applied it is a real mess.  The final product is worth it though.

 

 

The trick is to be patient and deliberate to avoid totally wiping out all the hard work with the top coat, but to put enough paint on so that it doesn't look un-realistically colored.  It usually means I have to walk away for a couple of hours and come back with fresh eyes. 

 

 

From this distance it's hard to see the tonal variations in the paint, but they are there and they are subtle.  My rule of thumb is: if I look at a build and say: "wow that looks so real!  How did they do that?" then it is not overdone (that is, the effect, whatever it may be, is not overdone and suitably subtle).  If I look at it and say, "wow that looks so real and I see its because of <fill in the blank>", then it's not subtle enough.    That is the rule I apply when I look at my work with fresh eyes.  If I can see individual colors or see the mottles then it needs more OD.  If I look at it and it looks worn and I have to look closely to try and pick out the color changes on the surface, it's probably just what I want.  Of course bright colors (like the hinamaru and bandages) ruin a lot of subtlety because of how your eyes and brain work together... but that is a different headache!

 

Wow... I'm sure chatty.  Sorry about that.

 

Anyway, as you can see I removed some of the masking because I really needed to see how well it worked.  I was very nervous about ridges along the edges so I carefully removed as much of the upper masking as I could without disturbing the lower masking.  Luckily the surfaces are very smooth and only one minor repair needed so far!

 

The Tojo may be a different story.  I sprayed the Mr. Surfacer on a little thick to get a smooth surface, and then remembered that I could make ridges on the tape edges.  Well... we'll see. 😕 

 

Today I will try to finish the major painting by trying to match that tan/brown in the avationofjapan page I linked to before and spraying the bottom.  Then it's just down to the details.  I'll switch over to painting the Tojo when I do the gloss coats on the Frank...

Edited September 5, 2021 by opus999

[opus999]

This morning I masked the Frank for painting the bottom.  Once that was done I painted the wheel wells.  i went with bare metal because the reading I did indicated that late in the war there was a mix of aotake and bare metal wheel wells.  The bare metal was due to a materials shortage. 

 

 

I painted the bottom with a custom mix that matched the paint swatches at the aviation of Japan website.  That page indicated that the bottom might have been just the top coat lightened with white or gray.  That was my approach and my mix was 10 parts Mr. Color gray green (128) and 3 parts Mr. Color Olive Drab (112).  After a marble coat and the top coat, this is what I had:

 

 

I was able to take off all the masking and things generally looked good.

 

 

There was some paint ridges along the yellow leading edges, but they rubbed off OK. Under the magnifier glasses, the yellow leading edges look a little rough in places, but they look fine under my un-augmented eyes.

 

I am horribly frustrated at the finish on the bottom. I had mentioned that the Mr. Surfacer was spraying funny.  I rubbed it down with an old cloth diaper and it felt much smoother, but not perfect.  Well, with the semi-gloss Mr. Color, the surface looked terrible.  I rubbed it down again with the old cloth diaper and it does feel smoother, but I'm just not happy with it.  Its almost like there's a fine dust in it.  I wonder if I was being too cautious trying to keep the tape edges from getting too wet and ended up generating paint dust that was covered by the subsequent wetter coats?

 

Stepping back and looking at it objectively, I think the gloss coat will smooth the surface out and everything will end up being OK.  The color looks great, just the surface is a little janky.

 

And then there's this:

 

 

Usually the Tamiya Silver leaf dries quickly.  On top of that I had lunch  before jamming blue tac in the wheel wells. Apparently it wasn't dry enough so I've got that nasty blemish that's going to make a repair a challenge.

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

If you have a very high grit 4000 or higher Polish it out. If not an old T-shirt will work just as well. 

[2996 Victor]

Hi Opus,

 

the Frank is looking fantastic and I love the camo colours you've gone for. And as usual (!) your marbling effect under the finish coat looks just brilliant but what a shame, though, that its developed a dusty texture. As Dennis says, fine grit or a t-shirt, or as I've been doing lately using fine grades of MicroMesh. You'll get it sorted in no time!

 

Cheers,

Mark

[opus999]

22 hours ago, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

If you have a very high grit 4000 or higher Polish it out. If not an old T-shirt will work just as well. 

 

6 hours ago, 2996 Victor said:

As Dennis says, fine grit or a t-shirt, or as I've been doing lately using fine grades of MicroMesh. You'll get it sorted in no time!

I had already polished it with an old cloth diaper, which made it smoother and I was afraid of removing paint, but I figured, "what the heck" and took both of your advise.  The high grit micromesh smoothed it out further and the color appears basically the same.  I think the gloss coat will take care of the rest.  Thanks guys for giving me a nudge!

 

6 hours ago, 2996 Victor said:

the Frank is looking fantastic and I love the camo colours you've gone for. And as usual (!) your marbling effect under the finish coat looks just brilliant

Thanks Mark.  I think the colors are pretty neat.  I've never seen a model with such an underside color, but I trust the aviation of japan blog.  I think the color looks rather neat!   I wish you guys could see the top coat in person.  I just can't do it justice with my photography skills. The multi-color marbling gets tedious (unless you like mixing paint, then it's a blast!  ), but it really is worth it.

[opus999]

A couple minor crises today have robbed me of bench time.  It's 2 PM and I doubt I'll get to it today.  Nothing major, mind you, just home ownership and kid parenting type things that just frustrate you and steal time away on what's supposed to be a holiday... 🙄

[2996 Victor]

10 minutes ago, opus999 said:

The high grit micromesh smoothed it out further and the color appears basically the same.  I think the gloss coat will take care of the rest. 

Great news I'm sure it'll be perfect under the gloss coat!

 

12 minutes ago, opus999 said:

I trust the aviation of japan blog.

Definitely! Nick Millman is a true scholar and an incredibly helpful guy. The AoJ Blog is a fascinating resource.

 

13 minutes ago, opus999 said:

I wish you guys could see the top coat in person. 

Likewise!

 

14 minutes ago, opus999 said:

The multi-color marbling gets tedious (unless you like mixing paint, then it's a blast!  ), but it really is worth it.

One day I'll try it A new airbrush and compressor are on my shopping list before I tackle anything more complex than I already have

 

13 minutes ago, opus999 said:

things that just frustrate you and steal time away on what's supposed to be a holiday... 🙄

Yep! Hope it's all sorted out now!

 

Cheers,

Mark

[Bob C.]

Hello Opus, 

All your trials and tribulations seem to be paying off quite well.  I especially like the Frank's top coat.  If I understood you correctly, your "olive brown" base coat was Mr. Color Olive Drab 112 (based on how you said you created the lightened undersurface color), and the "brownish" effects were from the dark earth and Russian radome green. 

Have I gotten that right, esp regards to the base olive drab?

Everything is looking good.  Waiting expectantly for the finish!

Bob C 

[opus999]

2 hours ago, Bob C. said:

Hello Opus, 

All your trials and tribulations seem to be paying off quite well.  I especially like the Frank's top coat.  If I understood you correctly, your "olive brown" base coat was Mr. Color Olive Drab 112 (based on how you said you created the lightened undersurface color), and the "brownish" effects were from the dark earth and Russian radome green. 

Have I gotten that right, esp regards to the base olive drab?

Everything is looking good.  Waiting expectantly for the finish!

Bob C 

You've got that mostly right... The first set of mottles were Mr. Color Olive Drab 12.  On top of that I did some random mottling of dark earth and Russian radome green (all Mr. Color).  Then I picked out the panels just behind the guns and painted them solid Mr. color "propeller color", followed by a couple panels solid Mr. Color RLM 81.  Finally I dusted Mr. Color Middlestone for sun fading effects.  Once that kaleidoscope was done, I carefully put a top coat of Olive Drab 12 over the whole thing.

 

Like I said, quite a bit of work, but it really gives it that abused-by-the-weather look and makes the solid color much more interesting.  I also used the same technique on my P-51B, A-36 and Ki-61 builds.  Hope this helps you!