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Hongseob CHOI
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SB2C-4 Helldiver, 1/72 Academy

June 25, 2018 · in Aviation · · 8 · 3.3K

Here's 's 1/72 . Recently Academy re-released this kit with Cartograf decal and diver flap PE part. and the kit itself is already top notch quality.

PE part for 72th scale was first time challenge for me. and it was hard one. now I totally cannot image to making warship model with fully detailed tiniest PE parts..

I wanted to make this looks well aged but I didn't want to weathering that make it darker color. because aged navy blue color aircraft is getting faded, not darker. then I washed all with ivory oil paint and taped with crumpled tissue soaked with thinner. adding just little bit of dark brown washes in ammunition panel on wing only for oil stains.
And one thing I noticed during watching photo references, the most of aircraft is not totally mat finished neither semi gloss finished. they have irregular texture mix of both of it. so I sprayed mat finish overall, then make irregular brush touched gloss varnish on surface, and still wash it with crumpled tissue for making natural stains. I think this finishing method worked well like I Imagine.

Reader reactions:
6  Awesome

19 additional images. Click to enlarge.


8 responses

  1. Never would've believed this to be 72nd scale...absolutely wonderful workmanship! 🙂

  2. Nice work! Detail and color never missed!

  3. Excellent model, well done!
    Thanks for the explanation of the finishing method, I think it is a correct approach to add realism.

  4. Very nice job with some nice weathering. Love the model, great detail work. Nice subject matter. Wish they had made this kit in 1/48...need a good 1/48 kit on the market. Very interested in exactly what you did with the wet tissue technique? Never hear of that but plane looks great.

  5. I love it! Excellent weathering and paint work. I didn't know Academy had included PE dive flaps in a re-issue - I may have to snag another one of these, as the first one I built was a long time ago, and modeling skills were in their infancy.

  6. Beautiful job on a beast of an aircraft!

  7. The thing that impresses me is the detail on this small scale; the weathering in 72nd is hard to get to look 'scale' but you've really nailed it. Very well done Hongseob.

  8. Beautiful work. I did the p-e flaps on a 1/48 model (photos below) and thought that was hard as could be. This is a real achievement!

    3 attached images. Click to enlarge.

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