The real plane seemed pretty clean in all the photos so I kept the dirt to a minimum, a wash of 60/40 Ultimate Dark Dirt and Light Dirt with some spots around the exhausts and wing roots getting a pure dark dirt wash and a streaky clean up. The real plane had a different antenna mast and the kit does not supply that for you so I had to cut it off and reseat it on the kit at the right angle. Mercifully, this also meant no wire to string as the plane didn't have one while the Japanese version did. Hooray! The real plane also had the inside wheel bay doors removed so I omitted them on the kit, too.
Rudder striping was painted on instead of using the decals, otherwise all the decals were used.
That's not to say I didn't have my struggles. There were some ugly gaps to fix, but not serious. My troubles were trying to handle the kit after the metallic paint was on, and I think the Alclad Air-frame Aluminum was too dark to start with, maybe should have used a lighter aluminum or a dull aluminum. A few spots are far darker than I would have liked but in the end I decided to move on after three mask and respray for color combinations on the metal panels
The canopy frame is messed up a bit, and I think next time I'll buy a masking set rather than toil away at that again. Live and learn!Build thread here: viewtopic.php?f=603&t=22265
NOTE: WIP pictures are hopefully replaced correctly now. Hopefully I didn't screw up the order, though I feel like I lost a couple along the way. Thanks for your patience!
