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Ralph Clements
43 articles

Hasegawa P-400

February 8, 2015 · in Aviation · · 14 · 2.5K

This is a "Shark Teeth" that I decided to do toothless...it is my approximation or guesstimate, if you will,of a /400(?) in North Africa, 1943. I just finished reading "An Army At Dawn" about the Tunisian campaign, maybe that had something to do with it.

This is not supposed to be any particular real aircraft. I could find very few illustrations to go by and none seemed authoritative, So I used my own paint colors, mostly decals from the kit and some from my leftover decal file, the fuselage letters and nose art (girl from one kit, name "Cleopatra" from another)

Also the first time I used some "Tamiya Weathering Master" stuff I got the first time I ever went to a Hobby Lobby store when I was in the big city a few weeks ago -

Hope you like it half as much as I liked building it.

Reader reactions:
4  Awesome

8 additional images. Click to enlarge.


14 responses

  1. Nice work. Most likely, the camo on these P-39s in North Africa was Army Tan or British Middle Stone over the original Olive Drab. Yours looks very convincing though.

  2. A superb Airacobra. Well done. I concur with Tom on the camo. However, you did a very good job on this build. Two thumbs up!

  3. Very nice camouflage job - I assume free-hand brush-painting? Interesting photographic effect on those bottom three overall shots...how'd you do that?

    • Yes Craig, it's free hand hair-brushed paint, thinned, and Futured...

      I take the pics in my garage. I put a folding table against the garage door and tape a piece of white poster board to it and the door, so it makes an arc, and set the model on the table (so no corner seam is visible behind it) The ambient light in there is pretty weak. So the first pictures you see are fairly long exposures, like 1 second or so with no flash. The ones you note, which I just tried for variety, were done by aiming an LED headlight at it, that is a small battery powered light that you strap on your hard hat for working at night. I have a bunch of those leftover from tunnel work. No flash was used. I also took some with flash and no LED but it seemed the shadows were too harsh and the colors too blue. I didn't post those.

  4. Always liked these old car-door cockpit types. Nice job on an old workhorse.

  5. Great job Ralph. I like the camo.

  6. Neat camouflage job, some neat pictures and I like the open door as well. Cleopatra looks good, too!

  7. Very nice mate. 🙂

  8. Thanks everyone, this was fun to build

  9. I agree with the others Ralph - neat camouflage, and a VERY nice hand-painted finish. I have read that book as well, and understand your inspiration from it. I am often inspired by my reads, but rarely follow through. I admire you for doing that ! Nice one 🙂

  10. Ralph:
    Nice choice of scheme, very few North African campaign aircraft get done. Shame, as there are some really different schemes and marking choices.
    Me, I'm gonna do the Pacific one with the nekkid woman down the sides, just to stir up the guys in my club.
    Nice job on the colors and the painting thereof.

    • Ha thats funny Bernard, you know I just didn't feel like painting it green...I saw pictures of the one you speak, maybe they did that to distract the opposition? I just didn't have a girlie decal that large...

  11. Ralph,
    Always liked the looks of this airplane and you did a great job on it.

    • Thank you Frank too always thought the Airacobra was very aesthetically pleasing, "great lines". If success was measured by looks in its business, it would be right up there with the Spitfire, P-51 and others.

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