¹⁄32

Mitsubishi A6M5 Zero

Some notes about the model

This was my first attempt at a "big scale" build, and I must say I couldn't have picked a better kit to start with. I built it straight out of the box, decals and all, and I can't say enough for the detail in this kit! The only thing I didn't really like were the kit seat belts, but they turned out okay in the end. The interior was painted with Aeromaster medium green, and the rest of the plane was done in Tamiya acrylics. The aotake was my own mix of Tamiya's Chrome Silver, Clear Blue, and Clear Green.

I preshaded the airframe with flat black, and painted the lower surfaces with Tamiya Sky Grey then added some white to it to highlight select panels. The upper surfaces were painted with my own mix again using Tamiya Dark Green, Cockpit Green, Blue, and Desert Yellow. Couldn't tell you the ratio, I just mixed until I came up with a shade I liked! Again I added some white to it to highlight a few panels here and there.

After a few coats of Future I applied the decals. As always, the kit decals were a tad on the thick side, but a few applications of Solvaset and the snuggled down just fine. A few more coats of Future blended the carrier film perfectly. The panel lines received a wash of thinned Tamiya flat black and flat brown. The hinomarus were post-shaded with the same mixture. Exhaust and MG stains were done with Tamiya smoke, then the model received a flat coat from Polly Scale. The weathering was finished up with some chipping with a Prismacolor silver colored pencil, and I tried to keep it to a minimum as far as Zero's go, ha!ha!

This kit took a little longer than my 1/48 builds, but it was definitely worth it in the end!