Small Scale Military Headquarters

This is my first ever attempt at a Japanese plane. The lighting is not that good in the pics, sorry about that. I gotta take some pics outside.

Let me know your thoughts on this plane!

As always nice work...

Looks great! Nice job!

Well done

I like it!

Beautiful.

Great repaint and love the weathering on the ZERO.

I like it. Great repaint. Nice job.

Really looks nice...Intricate pattern, for sure.
BBI was going to do a Rabaul version a few years ago...

456THBG wrote:Really looks nice...Intricate pattern, for sure.
BBI was going to do a Rabaul version a few years ago...

Yep, around that time I made this one so I could sell it before the BBI one was released, I guess I had plenty of time...





I liked mine at the time but I like Flyboys much better! I didnt do all the detail work he did like the red out line on the flap and his bands on the tail and the body look fantastic!!

At one point I was going to do a fantasy captured Avenger and paint it just like your Zero Flyboy!!

Did you use a brush to do the green?? I masked mine with clay and shot it with grey.. I wonder about the real ones, anyone know how they painted the green?? did the Japs have spray guns on the island or did they use brushes??

The ONLY reference of this scheme was from a game. Could not find more, other than a single B&W photo that appeared to have it. I brushed painted it and filled in with an airbrush. I figured their scheme was also brushed on.


http://combat-asylum.com/uploads/downlo ... vu%201.jpg

I've not attempted any spotted camos before, so I was wondering:

Is there a method they used for spots, or did they just cover the craft with random blobs until they had it looking how they wanted?

As usual a very nice job Alex, your painting skills are without a doubt some of the best

[CAT]CplSlade wrote:I've not attempted any spotted camos before, so I was wondering:

Is there a method they used for spots, or did they just cover the craft with random blobs until they had it looking how they wanted?

Not really sure. I'm definitely not an expert on Japanese planes.

japanese camo was done very quickly and without much in the way of organized method. This is especially true of navy planes before mid 43 (when the dark green was standardized). Before that, land based navy planes typically had green camo applied in some fashion on the upper surfaces, over the standard light grey (or whatever colour you prefer to think they were painted). They would spray, brush or wipe on the paint as equipment and time allowed. So there was a lot of variation between units.

Because of the varnish that was applied over the light grey (for carrier operations to protect from the salt air) the camo paint tended to weather quickly as it didn't adhere well.

Note the green used in the camo patterns was not the same bright dark green that was applied from about mid 43 onwards. It was a bit lighter and more olive in shade.

Note too that the beautiful 'palm frond' paint schmes were more of an army thing, for whatever reason, and rarely if ever were they seen on navy planes

Hello,

New to this forum. I love your Zero, I never wanted to customize my 1:18 aircraft, now i'm going to have to explain why I need another 1:18 Zero to the lady of the house.

Anyways, I have several books on the Zero mainly from Japan that my cousins send me, I can't read kanji so I just look at the pics. I don't think there is any wrong way to do the splotch paint job on Zero's. I have B&W photo's of Zero's with different schemes from this time period. They also include B&W drawings of them to match to help the modeler. There's one with the small splotch patterns (like yours), one with huge splotch patterns, one with tiger stripe patterns, and one with a cross weave pattern.

Most of the pics, show that the birdcage was left gray and a little space left around the hinomaru's.

WOW! Thanks for the info and welcome to the forums!