Hi Everyone,
This past weekend I tired to get a lot done. Which for me meant I didn't get much sleep. I rose early and stayed up late, and consequently I put the update for this thread in another thread. I deleted most of the post, but couldn't delete it all. My apologies for drawing you into an old thread, if you looked.

This is my current status:

At this point, I've chipped the paint, and added the engine and cowling.

For those of you that noticed, I narrowed the white circle around the fuselage Hinomarus.
All of the markings on the plane so far are painted....for better or worse.

How many of you have seen the gun camera footage from the Great Marianas Turkey shoot? One thing that struck me was how orange the Hinomarus showed on the gun camera footage. It may have been from several different factors having nothing to do with true color, but since I was painting them on, I took liberties and added a lot of orange to my red paint. My apologies to Tamiya.

Before weathering the underside, I had to take account of several factors. One was the tailwheel. It's so small that I can't see it being used on anything but prepared surfaces. Also, this plane most likely served from long standing airbases like Clark Field in the Philippines, or bases on the Japanese mainland.

So, I restricted my weathering to exhaust smudges, gun smoke smudges, and oil from the engine, control surfaces, and landing gear.

Thank you for looking,

Gary

Hi Gary.

Your build here is coming along beautifully, the chipping and staining really look nice.




I looked, I scratched my head, then I got distracted by the pictures of your P-47 build and all was forgiven!

Cheers, D

Thank you, Damian,
I know there's another NMF jug in me somewhere. But it will have to wait for some others.

Best wishes,

Gary

That looks fantastic Gary!


Matrixone

Joel i used lifecolor for the first time last night. despite all the good things i heard i have to say i was disappointed and probably will not buy anymore. their thinner was horrible, i got better results with DNA. one thing i learned is you can not thin it way down with their thinner, it sprays blotchy. i am not an acrylic fan anyway but i will stick to tamiya and gunze if possible

Gary, great work so far. i am inspired to make one of these models but i will leave the foiling to you. the model would end up in little pieces after impacting the wall if i attempted it.

joe.

Les and Joe,
Thank You! Now I'm here for the final update...or the completion photos, if you will.

I learned a lot on this build. The main thing I've learned is that doing a foil NMF with a full paint scheme is a lot of work that has to be done over a fragile surface. Foil and masking simply do not go together. Even with the most gentle masking tape that you've stuck to your skin before you put it on the plane can pull the foil off. It's an easy fix, mind you... It just depends on your temperament.


As usual, I prefer my NMF planes photographed in natural light with no flash. The sun had just set when I took these.


One thing nice about this kit was that even the flashes on the propeller blades were supplied. The only add-ons I've done were brake lines.


The kit comes with 4 sets of markings. They're all pretty unremarkable. The others just have regular numerals on their vertical stab. I chose these because there is at least one easy to see Japanese character. I couldn't find any info of pilots known to the type, unfortunately.



And last but not least, the underside. The area around the landing gear and 20MM cannon gondola is very busy.

I suppose I will eventually get around to the N1K1J2 and have to go through the same thing all over again. Hopefully by then I will have mastered all of the foibles of foil.

Thanks for looking!

Gary

Wow,
so many work om putting on the foil only to spray paint over it and get some chip effects
Looks very good to me, the whole model. But why didn't you just painted the chipped areas with metallizer paint?

greetings TC

Hi Lars,
Thank you. I have only returned to the hobby after many years and am experimenting as well as learning from others. I have seen many other attempts at chipping, and have noticed that it is an easy effect to screw up. Sometimes a chip made by a toothpick looks like a chip made by a toothpick. I've tried the salt technique and I didn't like the results.
Once you build a NMF model with foil, it's difficult to return to metallic paint for anything but the smallest surface. The best metallic paint still looks like paint. You can use lighting and painting effects to make metallic paint look like metel, but in the real light of day, there is no comparison. The underside of the plane had to look like metal, and I wanted the chipped areas to look like metal as well.

Best wishes,

Gary

then we are on the same boat... I am also back from a longer break and try to pick up again.
Although my second and more serious spell on modeling focussed on armour .
I really like the effect in itself looks good. I am curious how the effect will look after further weathering. I wonder if the scratch on backboard side isn't too big... but we will see . Keep us posted!

gr TC

Gary,
Simply an exceptional build with the NMF being foil. The overall finish really captures the look and feel of an operational aircraft that has seen a good deal of wear and tear. Well done my friend.
Joel

[quote]

Joel i used lifecolor for the first time last night. despite all the good things i heard i have to say i was disappointed and probably will not buy anymore. their thinner was horrible, i got better results with DNA. one thing i learned is you can not thin it way down with their thinner, it sprays blotchy. i am not an acrylic fan anyway but i will stick to tamiya and gunze if possible...
[joe]

Joe,
That's for your observations on LIfecolor paints. Some guys love 'em, and some hate 'em. So far my only experience has been doing the top turret. I did thin the Interior Green 2 parts paint to 4 parts their thinner, and it shot perfectly smooth, but was too thin of a mixture. I tested out 2-3,1-1, 3-2, and 4-2. For general overall air brushing the 4-2 works well, but I'm sure that the color used will make a difference.

Joel

Welcome back to the hobby, Lars! I plan to build some armor eventually, once I build enough aircraft. Planes were the first to catch my boyhood imagination.

Hey Joel,
Thank you for your kind words. I'm glad that you like the results. There were some times when I despaired of it ever looking right. At one point I had one of those: "Why did I ever start this blog?" moments when all of my planned experimental techniques had failed and I was considering throwing the entire thing in the bin. Instead I resolved try again by removing the upper surface paint entirely.
...and funnily enough, that's when I discovered the right way to chip a foiled model covered in acrylic paint.

Thank you for your encouragement,

Gary

Hello Gary,

Your Shiden looks awesome! Great work on the NMF and the chipped camo. Reading Your thread acquires the taste for doing this method myself sometime.

Cheers Oliver

Most excellent work Gary.

I agree with you, nothing looks more similar to a NMF finish than the foil technique. I should try this once for my self.

Congratulations how this build turned out!

Jelger

Hi Oliver and Jelger,
Thank you very much! If you decide to take the plunge, you won't regret it. I got my start from reading this article:
http://www.finescale.com/~/media/import/files/pdf/6/7/d/foiledlightning1.pdf

Best wishes,

Gary