Hasegawa 1/48 A6M3 Zero WIP

[Elm City Hobbies]

Building this for the military theme at this year's CAMS show coming up in late May.

Kit is out of the box, with the exception of the gun barrels and pitot tube, which are from Master Barrels (look much better than that plastic counterparts).



Thought I did a pretty good job on the cockpit, since I didn't add anything to it straight out of the box, was proud of it before I installed it into the fuselage....still proud of it...just can't see much of it now.



Again...thought I would spruce up the engine a little with some painting, washes and drybrushing....looks good here......



But disappears once the cowling goes on, along with most of the 7.7mm guns.......



And engine disappears even more with the prop and nose cap on.



Nothing fancy with the gear bays...nicely detailed, just needed some paint, wash and dry brush to bring out the details.

 

[Carsenault]

looks good Scott.

 

[Junkie]

Scott's building a model!!!!! Seriously though, that's looking great. From what I see of the cockpit, it's rocking. See more of this at CAMS fer shur.

 

[Quaralane]

Looking good there.

 

[panzerman75]

Looking really good can't wait to see more of it 8)

 

[Eastrock]

Cool, looking forward with your build.

 

[apostolos]

Nice work so far, but for the wheel wells you should use either the aotake colour or the camo colour.

 

[Elm City Hobbies]

Nice work so far, but for the wheel wells you should use either the aotake colour or the camo colour.

From everything I have read, the wheel wells were painted something equivalent to the Mitsubishi Green, same as the cockpit. Since there are absolutely ZERO color photos of one during the war, one has to go with what one feels is right with the references one has.

There are lots of color photos of restored Zeros....but 9 times out of 10, their colors are realistic, and all the photos from WWII are B&W.

In any case....closest Vallejo color to Mitsubishi Green is Pastel Green, subsequent washes and drybrushing later, and that is what you see. Once it is finished and on a base....not going to see the wheel wells anyway.

 

[Carsenault]

I have hear the color 'aotake" described as the same color as a bamboo stalk, I believe its actually the Japanese word for "green bamboo". If so, that looks spot on to me.( Not that I've ever been fortunate enough to see a bamboo stalk in person.)

 

[apostolos]

I have hear the color 'aotake" described as the same color as a bamboo stalk, I believe its actually the Japanese word for "green bamboo". If so, that looks spot on to me.( Not that I've ever been fortunate enough to see a bamboo stalk in person.)

Not even close, aotake was a blue-green clear varnish over the aluminium surface.