Hello folks, I figured I’d share my recently completed project, the Tamiya Kawasaki Ki-61. After the challenging Helldiver, the third Dauntless I’ve had the pleasure to build in a 6 month span (sarcasm) and now a 1/32 B-25 coming up next, I needed something simple and a bit different. This was the ticket and it’s been a while since I’ve done a Japanese subject. The Ki-61 was basically Japan’s attempt at copying the Bf 109. It’s engine is a copy of the German DB601. It’s my understanding it had similar performance too.
I wanted something a little different than the common NMF with green dot subjects (ie the cover art). I came across one of Teruhiko Kobayashi’s 244th Sentai machines which was green over natural metal (below) with a red tail. I decided to build this subject which showed 9 B-29 and 2 Hellcat kills on the port side.
The cockpits on these were apparently painted a yellowish brown color. I used XF-59 Desert Yellow with a touch of XF-49 Khaki added to brown it up. The pit is great out of the box with nice detail. Tamiya also does a nice job calling out paint colors. I added a zoom instrument panel and seatbelts.
A quick test fit. Like all recent Tamiya releases, everything fit perfectly. I may just build recent Tamiya kits for the rest of this life.
All markings, to include the blue and white stripes, have been painted on. I continue to experiment with AK chipping fluid. This is very easy too overdo, however, Japanese subjects are the perfect test bed because you can’t really overdo it. I concentrated around the prop, wing leading edge and port wing root. The green was a custom mix with XF-58 Olive Green and a bit of XF-57 Khaki.
I experimented with Tamiya XF-7 Red to try for a faded look on the tail, particularly the control surfaces. This was achieved by adding varying degrees of XF-2 White. The key was to stop before it turned pink. The 244th sentai symbol on the tail was done with a Montex stencil. It was fragile and a bit tricky to get in place but worked pretty well.
Underside is Alclad Aluminum.
That’s about it. I plan to do more of these. Kobayashi was the commander of the 244th Sentai, which was the most successful aerial defense unit of Japan. He was also the youngest to be given command and in January of 1945, he downed a B-29 by ramming it. He would survive the war.
