Howdy folks! Here's my 1/48 Tamiya Shiden.

It was built with Eduard seat belts and Aeroscale decals. Paint is Tamiya acrylic. The figure is from Tamiya's 1/48 Raiden. I may do something else with the base, thus the figure's mount on a temporary stand. Enjoy!

I really like it.

What is your technique for the paint loss/scuffing?

Hi there! Actually, my build description was a little off as I forgot to mention that I do my scuffs with a mixture of acrylics by Vallejo and Reaper. I like to use these as they don't tend to "bunch up" like many other acrylics (Tamiya is great to airbrush with, but I hate to use them with a paint brush) and work well for drybrushing.

I use some of Vallejo's Flat Aluminum and mix in a little of Reaper's Honed Steel (basically Gun Metal) to darken the aluminum up. Then I use an old small paintbrush that I have cut the bristles down low to make them stiff and dry brush the paint mixture wherever I want scuffs or chips.

The key is to slowly build up the scuffs instead of trying to do them all at once. Chips are produced by layering the scuffs up in certain spots to produce a larger area of loss. BTW, there's no reason why I use the Reaper product other than it was available and it has the same consistency as Vallejo. Whenever I get around to buying some Vallejo gun metal, I'll use that to mix in.

I'm gonna do up a build review in a couple weeks that will hopefully illustrate what I'm talking about, but until then, I hope this helps!

Great build.

It surely got a beating in the paint work Did the paint come of to such a large extent? It seems extreme, but I am no expert on Japanese aircraft so it might be the case.

Thanks for sharing

Hi! Thanks for the kind words. Yes, with Japanese aircraft, paint was notorious for scuffing easily and coming off in large chunks. The salty Pacific ocean air didn't help matters. Here is a picture of a Zero where a lot of the green has come off behind the cowl (itself showing cracks) and a half-hearted attempt has been made to repaint. Note how the same thing has happened with two of the planes in the background.



The weathering options this affords makes building Japanese aircraft even more fun IMHO. Compared to some Japanese planes, my Shiden's weathering is actually understated.

Cheers!

Ah well, the image's hot link has been removed, but no big deal. Just Google "A6M2" and similar pics can be seen.