Yeah baw 1:32 Saburo Shindo Zeke!

[speedgraflex]

I totally get what you wrote about “I suck at...” but my first impression was extreme excitement over some sweet looking contrasts of color and texture (the metal of the canisters is truly great), however I am finding out through a deep dive in 1/72 how much pre finishing surfaces (ie removing release lines and flash) determines the outcome. Also bully for you to do this and write about the process itself. That takes guts. Good work. So to wrap around to my first point and maybe my only point—the work does not suck.

[KennyX]

Many, many thanks my man. Many thanks. It’s getting to the point where if I don’t do it correctly it kills my mojo. I’ve cleaned so many cockpit pieces lately HAHAHAAA... oh man. But it’s true. It’s getting to the point where I’m being extra careful, extra thorough. I suppose that’s natural though.

[KennyX]

Now that is the perfect mindset toward such details- make use of the challenge to improve in areas where you need to do so.

Yessir! Because if you do that, no time is wasted and the project -and subsequent projects- will be even better!

[Stuart]

[KennyX]

Okay mounting the seat to the posts on that frame— not easy. It looks simple enough but it all has to be aligned just-so. If you ever build this kit, ignore any urge you might have to say “Nah, this is a Tamiya kit, it’ll be fine” and proceed. No. No. Test-fit it all before glue and paint. Holy cow that was an exercise in anxiety and frustration. But I got her done!

[BlackSheep214]

Sa-weeeet!

[Stikpusher]

Indeed! That looks so good Kenny! Great work on the colors and wear!

[Duke Maddog]

Thank you fellas!

Moving along, I finished the oxygen and hydraulic fluid bottles and radio that’ll be forever entombed in the fuselage. Waste of time? Very probably except for one thing- I need practice painting small parts like this. So I’m treating them like any other detail- worthy of being painted as best I can. I suck at this part, these small details, so a I am happy I get the practice.

If this is you sucking at detail painting, I want to ascend to your level of sucking! This looks magnificent! Commendations to you on using these to practice as well. That is a superb mindset; One I've adopted some time back as well.

Your subsequent post showing the cockpit seat looks amazing. Brilliant work man!

[KennyX]

My friends, thank you and gracias and danke and baō sorte. I appreciate the encouragement and votes of confidence in this, I really do.

Those oxygen bottles took a lot of masking and mindfulness. I remember the ones I did on my 1:48 Zeke. I brush painted those and wasn’t happy with them but didn’t sweat it because “nobody will see them.” I wished I hadn’t done that.

I guess we can airbrush just about anything if we mask it correctly. That’s my big take-away.

I am electing not to wire these guys though. The cockpit module is designed to be inserted into the fuselage after the fuselage is sealed together and I don’t really have a good way of getting the wires into there after that. It’s okay because I’m that case yeah- we wouldn’t see em anyway and at least I got some practice painting small parts.

I wish I had test fit the pilot’s seat more, because one of the mounts is just a shade off kilter. We’re talking just a fraction of a fraction of a millimeter. But I wish I’d been a bit more mindful with that and and maybe I could have come up with an alternative method for doing that subassembly but- like Joe says “every model has a fault or two...” and the seat looks fine how it is. Even the seatbelt looks better than last time though I still plan to get after it with the oil paints. The seatbelt is vinyl and lays better than the decal seatbelts do. Easier to install than PE seatbelts too.

All in all so far this has been a fun kit to build.

[Stikpusher]

The vinyl gives the seat harness a proper scale thickness that decals alone do not. I really like that idea of vinyl there... much easier to work with for positioning than PE.