Babs, harbinger of doom
If in Spring 1942 one of these was sighted over your base, it meant hell was coming to breakfast. The C5M2 was only made in small numbers and was used for a short time, but it was part of a deadly system. The land based Kokutais Of the Japanese Navy had several of these for recon and pathfinding, leading the fighters and bombers to show them the way to the next target to pulverize. Prince of Wales and Repulse, Singapore, Sumatra, Java, Broome, Darwin and others felt the wrath of Babs.
Babs being the later Allied code name bestowed on this Mitsubishi C5M2, the IJN's version of the IJA's Ki-15, having the same Sakae engine as the Zero. The above notoriety, plus the fact that she's a real good lookin' bird, made me happy to finally see a quality 1/48 scale kit released by Fine Molds.
The kit itself is fairly trouble free, aside from a fiddly cowling/engine fit, and the very delicate decals that made me paint on the hinomarus, as the decals disintegrated under Solvaset solution. Also the interior is very nicely detailed, but none of it can be seen as no open canopy parts are provided. The more energetic could try to cut the closed canopy into separate parts,, or vac-form a new one to pose open. This model represents a C5M2 from 3rd Kokutai which led by Babs ran rampant over the South Seas for the first year of the Pacific War.
Anyway here are some pics, after the usual fight with the camera, which this time gave me some lovely Sepia tones that look pretty antique, anyway that's my excuse.
8 attached images. Click to enlarge.
Great looking Babs Bill. I did the early version several months ago and concur these are nice kits.
1 attached image. Click to enlarge.
Nice job. Want to get that version too, such good lookin machines. My kid is in the middle of doing all three.
Nice job Bill @billkoppos. Good looking kit. If you don't mind, what camera were you using? I may be able to help.
Hi James. It's a Fujifilm Finepix S4200 Dig. 14 megapixels, 24mm 24x. I know squat about cameras my Wife got it for me the salesman told her it's good for closeup shots (models). Like I told Tom below part of the problem is laziness, I only have one small lamp and should go out and get some sort of book on the subject (The manual is useless). I have fiddled with the aperture and F-stop but I'm pretty hopeless. All these pics were taken on AUTO. Thanks for the interest.
Great job!
Nice, Bill!
Nice job Bill, not familiar with this A/C or kit. I'm struck by her looks, so much glass and so 30's design. I like it.
Nice model as usual Bill.
A trick I have learned to get photos to clear up is to bring them up in Photoshop, click "Image" then click "Auto color" and it will generally click to whatever the color should be. You may be getting that problem using tungsten lighting. If you get "daylight" bulbs (marked on the box) you can get rid of the problem. If after hitting "auto" some of that is still there, then click "other options" and go to "hue/saturation" and then to saturation, and bring it down a bit, the yellow from the tungsten will disappear.
You know, I actually completely forgot photoshop. I used to use it before my hiatus, gotta get on and play. Part of the problem is laziness, I only have one little lamp. Must invest in a better setup.
Perfect job Bill!
Its a handsome aircraft, I am particularly fan of “trouser” undercarriage, but the Babs has other details pleasing to the eye. Well done, a grey beauty
Great build.
Very nice. Never seen one of these built before. You have done it justice, including the interesting background history.
Thank you, Sir. One was built before...see Dale Travis, top of this list. Different version, same machine. 🙂
Bill, Interesting aircraft, kind of looks like the predecessor to the Myrt. One thing I enjoy about model building is seeing and learning about things you normally don't see, such as this, and you've done a very nice job building it. Well done !
I had the same problem with my pictures, and found the problem was with two issues, lighting and my camera. I found that getting away from "led" lighting and using regular old fashion condescend lights pretty much solved my problem. You can also use white paper over led lighting will help. also use lots of lighting. I use 3 lights at a variety of angles.
I also had a guy at my local Best Buy allow me try out a variety of digital camera's. I tried everything from a compact automatic to more expensive SLR styles. I was really set on a more expensive SLR type, however I ended up purchasing a simple Nikon S9900, and not because it was cheap, but it gave me the best results for taking model pictures, and it was also the only camera that I didn't have to fight the sepia problem. I've also seen that the newer iphones do a great job. I hope this helps.
Thanks Terry. Yeah a couple weeks ago I was researching cameras that would be best for close up work. Already forgot everything but some had a doodad for that light problem, IIRC one of them was a Nikon, might be yours. My wife's 5 year old phone (already obsolete) takes better pics than the cameras, but I can't afford that Smart phone stuff. Going to look at that S9900.
nice looking build - I have the Army version on my desk right now and just finished spraying on the Hinomarus. After reading your write-up, I'm happy I didn't go the decal route! I agree with you - other than the fiddly cowl (which I haven't finished yet), it is a might good kit. Loved this plane ever since I did the Hasegawa 1/72nd kit ages ago. And I'm doing this one in the same scheme I did the Hasegawa - green/brown camo with thin blue lines separating the colors. Meant to represent the rivers in China from what I understand. Based on info in Thorpe's IJAAF camouflage book. It may be dated info now, but that's how I did the 1/72 and that's how I'm doing this one!
Wow... sexy pants and a see-through midriff... shame it's a model, not a model. 😉 Yet another lovely wing-ey thingie from the master. Canopy is a beaut- shiny, shiny, and razor sharp masking job.
Down boy. Canopy bought to you by Dead Design masks. Excellent product. This was fun but 1/48 is too dang small, Ahm goin back to 32.
Rarely built model, turned out nice!
Nice job. Looks great. I also did the early variant. Great kit. I really enjoyed it.
Great looking build! Love all the different Japanese birds, some of them dated by the time the war started. This is one of those unique creatures. Gonna have to build one now...