Vintage Modeling. Aichi D3A1 Val – The kit from the 80’s in a contemporary version.
The Battle of the Coral Sea was probably the first topic of the War in the Pacific that I became interested in already in elementary school. I was very interested in the randomness of actions, where the proverbial happiness of the fighting parties was more important than the actual strategic and tactical actions of the navy and aviation forces. A few weeks ago, on the local auction site, I saw a oldschool D3A1 kit from Fujimi. After a short internet search and judging that the set is, despite the passage of time, promising a good final effect, I found that a model similar in year to my own can be an interesting challenge 🙂 To celebrate all those fighting in the Battle of the Coral Sea, regardless of the sides, I chose painting an aircraft with an attack on destroyer Sims. I bought a Print-Scale set of decals for this, but after exchanging e-mails with my friend Ryan, I decided to rely on the existing photo of the plane and modify the designation proposed by Print Scale to EI-235. What gives us a plane from the carrier "Shōkaku". The photos show the end result. The construction lasted from March 31 to April 24, 2021. The model is still waiting for a 1:72 scale bomb set that travels to me from Japan. The model was painted with Gunze paint. The top surfaces are C124 to match the D2 color. The lower surfaces are a 1: 1 mixture of C336 and C60. In addition, the Gaspatch machine gunner rifle was added (with made by hand viewfinder), and of course the bomber crew from the Hasegawa set. The cockpit was supplemented with an instrument panel and machine guns at the instrument panel. The most difficult stage of construction was the construction of a partially open cabin. It was such a difficult challenge that I do not know if I will ever come back to the Fujimi D3A Val model, I will undertake it again, because the effect does not satisfy me as much as I would like. Weathering was made by Oil Washes Modeler's World, and Weathering Master set from Tamiya. I hope you will like such an old model in a modern version. Finnaly after two weeks wainting for parcel from Japan, bomb is in place. I choose Type 99, no.25, mod.1 Ordinary HE bomb, against ship targets.
Nice work! Your gunner is painted extremely well. That’s an achievement in 1/72.
I'm glad you like the model. Unfortunetly cockpit is very tight, and after that I made some details in cokpit the pilot had a problem with fitting in because there was no place for his legs. I attached photo of crew before fitting in plane.
1 attached image. Click to enlarge.
I too like a lot your result, @lis!
Amazing for 1/72!
Great result, Lis.
Agree on the pilots, fantastic paintwork in those dimensions.
1/72? Great work!
Thank you all for the kind words. Yes it's 1:72 scale.
Fantastic! I have the old Fujimi kit - hope mine turns out as well!
Thank you! Fujimi Kit is quite nice 🙂
Finally bomb is in place 🙂
@lis…. This model, like all of yours, is excellent. It amazes me to see 1/72 aircraft turn out so nice.
@ssgt Thank you! I like very much if very common kit gives good result. Fujimi Kit was very accurate in diameter. It have few parts but fits very good, so I used fww afterarket details as crew figures, or nice Lewis gun. More expensive kit from Dragon had a lot of mistskes and very unclear instruciton how to build and many parts fits bad, as canopy.
I’ve built the 1/48 Fujimi/Testors Val kit. I liked it.
I admire people with the dexterity and eye sight, and skills to build 1/72 aircraft with excellence.