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Kawasaki Ki-45 Toryu

Final construction

Before spraying some Klir (Future) over the model, I glued the cockpit greenhouse to the fuselage except for the movable parts. I sprayed several coats of Klir to obtain a glossy finish. This is important because when applying a wash, it helps the paint to flow into the recesses by capilarity action.

Fitting the undecarriage was very easy. I also glued the engine cowlings and placed the propellers. The model received a final coat of satin to blend the camouflage and panel lines together. After that I glued all the detail parts (gear doors, antennas, radio wire, open cockpit parts, guns, navigation lights etc...), added some pastels and made the aerial wire out of elastic thread. Once in place, it is still bendable and therefore less fragile than everything else.

Finally, the only things I've added to the kit are PE seatbealts and a gunsight from the spare box for the rear gun. Otherwise it was built out of the box. The kit was a pleasure to build and the painting, even if challenging, was very interesting to do.

Isuzu TX40 Fuel truck

Included in the first boxing of the Ki-45 kit by Hasegawa is a nice Isuzu Fuel Truck, some acessories and some figures. Firstly, I test fitted the main parts without using glue and I found no construction difficulties. The interior of the cabin is somewhat simplified though and the thickness of some parts not always realistic. There is some room for improvement here for sure but nothing that can't be compensated with a nice paint job. The little fire extinguisher cart is a nice addition and the two figures are very good. they are easy to assemble (no filler is needed because there are no gaps) and they have very realistic poses.

To start with the fuel truck I applied a coat of paint, drybrushed and then added a wash to all the sub-assemblies. After that, the build was easy and trouble free. I still think some areas could have been improved by Hasegawa. Just look at the thickness of the doors and you will know what I mean. Anyway, with the canvas cover fitted over the cabin, most of the weaker points of the model are hidden anyway. A flat coat and some weathering and the model was finished.

The vinyl fuel hose of the kit was too thick for my taste and it was difficult to bend it to shape. I replaced it by a more flexible and thinner rubber band. I also scratchbuilt a fuel tank access hatch on the wing of the Ki-45 to represent the plane while being refueled.

Type 95 Kurogane

Tamiya's Kurogane came as a surprise while I was working on the Ki-45. It wasn't planed for the diorama I wanted to do but I couldn't resist to include it. There's really not much to say about the build of the model. I pretty much used the same techniques as for the Fuel Truck. The build took even less time. In fact, if you work with acrylic paints, you can build it in one afternoon. Weathering was done with Tamiya weathering sticks and pastels

Figures and accessories

As I've said, the two figures included in the Hasegawa kit are very nice. However, I decided to use everything I could find to depict a busy airfield around the Ki-45. Some figures and accessories can be found in the two Fine Molds Ki-10 "Perry" kits. Each boxing has a different sprue and when adding both together, the result is a complete Japanese WW2 set. I also included the figures and the bicycle of Eduard's Japanese Army Personnel set. All together, with the driver and the officer included in Tamiya's Kurogane kit, this makes 14 figures I had to paint., and I hate to paint figures!

I always use the same method to do them. First I apply a basic coat of paint with the airbrush. Of course I spray the color of the uniform. Then I drybrush the figure with a lighter version of the basic color. After that I do the detail painting with a small brush. Finally I apply a wash to blend everything together.

The accessories have been painted in a similar way than the figures. In total I gathered the following items for the diorama: several fuel drums, a manual fuel pump, an extinguisher cart, a bicycle, a ladder, a table, two ammunition boxes, two oil drums, two stools, a bucket, several bags and pouches etc... Quite a lot in fact and all of it wasn't available only a couple of years ago!

The diorama

To get the aircraft, the vehicles, the figures and the accessories all together on the same diorama and since I wanted to have some space between all the "actors", I needed a large base. I used a sturdy plate of laminated wood on which I glued several pieces of Mark58 concrete tilings. These have a very realistic appearence with only a wash applied to weather them.

For the grass area I used the following method: first I applied a coat of sand over white glue. After it was dry, I brush painted several shades of light brown color. Again I applied some white glue and finally strew some Faller railroad grass over it... et Voila! I decided to keep the diorama base as simple and neutral as possible so I could re-use for other photographic sessions later.

To shoot the pictures I used a background picture I found on the internet. I resized it and printed it with an A3 ink jet printer on semi gloss photographic paper. I used one bright 500 Watt Lamp as primary light source and other lamps for indirect lightning.

I hope you enjoy the pictures as much as I enjoyed shooting them.