Ki-61 kit now FINISHED! caution RW

[matrixone]

The 1/48 scale Ki-61 has been finished and here are some pictures of it.

Some explanation of the camouflage scheme that my model has...many Ki-61's were delivered to the front lines without camouflage paint and these aircraft were often given field applied camouflage paint in either solid green or streaks and mottles to improve the camouflage effect to better hide them while they were on the ground. This roughly applied camouflage paint would often start to wear off around the cockpit and wing roots areas first and that's the type of finish I chose for my model.
I painted the Ki-61 in an overall finish of metall before putting on the decals and spraying the bands on the fuselage, then the green streaks were carefully painted around the markings as per the painting procedure on the full size aircraft.
But before any green was painted on I use the salt weathering technique to try and mimic the worn off paint effect by placing damp salt clumps on the wing roots and near the cockpit, the salt weathering technique did work but still did not give me the type of paint wear I was after so I used some fine grade sandpaper and water to lightly sand off a little of the green paint and this worked better than expected and now the worn off paint on the model matches up quite well with the photographs of the full size machines.

On to the pictures...






Matrixone

[Dork the kit slayer]

AS a lot of you guys know I have a luuuv of WW2 Japanese subjects.  I can feel the luuuv from your Ki-61. An elegant fighter and you have done it justice. Gets my thumbs up. Nice build.

[matrixone]

Thanks Kit Slayer!

If you like this old Otaki Ki-61 you will like my other new build even better...I just finished a Ki-46 Dinah III and its WAY better than this Ki-61.



Matrixone

[zenrat]

Certainly is a handsome aircraft.  Good job.

[Librarian]

Beautiful . Have a huge soft spot for the aircraft designed around the DB inverted series of engines...do you have a photo of a line up of them? Macchis and Me109s etc.

[su27rules]

Very nice, great work!!

[NARSES2]

That is superb 

[matrixone]

Thanks guys!

Sorry I don't have any group shots of the models.

But on the plus side there WILL be a DB powered airplane model posted sooner rather than later.



Matrixone

[KiwiZac]

Lovely work, matrixone! The Tony is a sublime-looking machine and you've truly done that tricky-looking camo justice.

A restoration shop five hours' drive from me is going to get one or two Ki.61 projects to return to the air for American customers...I'm rather excited to see that happen!

[Old Wombat]

Lovely work, matrixone! The Tony is a sublime-looking machine and you've truly done that tricky-looking camo justice.

Agreed!

A restoration shop five hours' drive from me is going to get one or two Ki.61 projects to return to the air for American customers...I'm rather excited to see that happen!

You mean you can drive for 5 hours in one direction in Kiwiland & not end up in the water?