This D3A1 VAL is part of a 3 model kit that Hasegawa released a few years ago. The other two planes are an A6M2 Zero and an B5N2 Kate. All 3 planes presented in this kit took part in the initial attack on Pearl Harbor, and were launched off Imperial Japanese Carriers. I have already completed the B5N2 Kate which is featured in some of the forced perspective photos which were taken on a 1:48 replica of the IJN carrier Hiryu (24”x36”). Next up is the A6M2 Zero!
When I was a kid, this was a model that I wanted badly, but unfortunately none of the usual manufacturers that I had access to at the various retail stores (Monogram, Revell, Aurora, Lindberg, Airfix) kitted it. When I got back into the hobby in the mid-1990s, I discovered a now-gone shop in SW Houston that was pretty good and always had a good selection of kits from many more mfgs than I knew of. I spied this Fujimi 1/48 Val. These were the days before I had discovered FSM and did not know of terminology such as “stash”. And since I was newly returned to the hobby, my stash was maybe 1 or 2 kits still left over from the initial purchase I made (spurred by another kit that I had never built but had always wanted, a Revell 1/32 Beaufighter). So it wasn’t long before I had that Val on my workbench.
This is the first kit I tried to do some weathering, which as I recall was nothing more than using an architect’s pencil to highlight the panel lines. The airbrush I was using in those days was one of those cheap Testors single action models, but I was able to give it a light coat of whatever color I painted the Val with to knock down the harsh panel lining a bit. Sadly, that kit did not survive a shelving collapse a few years after this picture was taken.
That shelving collapse gave me a reason, and #1’s blessing, to buy a bunch of replacement models, and I picked up Hasegawa’s kitting of the Val.
This one was built as a Pearl Harbor bomber. I didn’t think those birds would have been heavily weathered, so I kept that to a bare minimum, and ended up with a good looking Val. That I still have in a display cabinet.
