Roku-Ichi in jungle paint. New Guinea Kawasaki Ki-61 Hien.
I never know when "wham" the urge to build something will pop up. Suddenly decided to build the New Guinea Ki-61 Hien I always wanted to do. The ones that sported those "squiggly" camouflage paint jobs. So jump online and order another Hasegawa 1/32 Kawi, the cheapest on eBay, and off we go.
The model falls together by itself, no issues here. Tamiya lacquer Silver was used for the basecoat. Now to try to solve the Japanese squiggly camouflage pattern (JSC). I find it very hard to crack the JSC idiom. You can just spray squiggles all over the place, but to get it to look like the pictures...no so easy. I looked at all the pics I could find, and decided not to try and copy one particular JSC, but do a generic jungle bird. The patterns seem very variable, with twists and curls in some places, while other areas are almost solid. Maybe this was to stretch the available Camo paint? Supplies were tough to get through the submarine infested waters to Wewak, New Guinea. In the end I got out the Badger Sotar 2.0, loaded it with Tamiya acrylic Dark Olive Green, and tried to spray the JSC like a sweating guy at Wewak airbase using little 1/32 scale arms. Based of course on a compendium of reference pics. The results came out only OK to me, but their results were all over the place too, so it are what it are.
This kind of thing is made harder by the fact that You really can't erase parts you don't like and get a do-over. I was able to rub away some of the squiggies with Windex to replicate wear, but can't really do this with larger areas. I guess the Japanese maintenance men did not have do-overs either. So, finishing up, I sprayed the tail markings of a 78th Sentai Hien, and did some weathering in the usual style. Sgt. Kanjinami is a Fine Molds JAAF figure I acquired at the Nats in Atlanta 2005. And he says, according to Osprey's Ki-61 aces, they never called these machines anything but "Roku-Ichi"... sixty-one.
Now I'm on a pointy thing kick again. Time to resume work on the Italieri MC 202. More squiggles!
That is a good effort Bill, these squiggles are always a hit and miss affair. Good luck with the MC.202 smoke rings.
That looks pretty much accurate to me Bill. Nobody was doing "nice" nobody was doing "artistic." It was a guy with a spraygun who wanted to get things over with asap. Same for Italian smoke rings and German wave mirror. On the bigger German planes you might have had 2-3 guys each doing a section according to their idea of "the way this should be."
A very convincing result! Great job.
G’day Bill (@billkoppos),
In these circumstances you have to think small - 1/32 small on this case.
How far can you reach with a spray gun - say 50-60 mm scale arm span?
Perhaps more if you are standing on the wing spraying downward. That will make a mess of your neat spray lines, too.
The only other thing to think about is the order things were painted - a clean canvas with the Hinomaru already applied and nothing else. Then camouflage, white fuselage band and squadron markings.
You got that all right and she looks fabulous.
Liked!
Excellent result overall and ditto approach on the camo scheme, Bill!
A great result, Bill @billkoppos
To me those squiggles do look perfect this way.
Looks good to my eyes. I also think you got the average reach a mechanic could manage with a spray gun spot on.
Well done, Bill. It looks very convincing to me.
Where did you find those 1/32nd arms to paint the the squiggles Bill? Ebay doesn't list them under armaments.
Looks convincing to me. Your figure looks pretty buff for a little guy too.
Yeah, Sgt. Kanjinami has been ah, working out.
Excellent result - your process paid off handsomely.
Great looking model… the paint turned out well.
Great results !
Thanks to all the responders, I love input.
Well to me your jungle spaghetti looks very realistic, just look at some good B&W photos of the real thing. Kudos to your Bill, it’s one of the best works I’ve seen on the Hein. Thumbs up
Looks great, Bill! I have the Revell 1/32 kit so I'll be using for reference!
Nicely done, Bill.
Well done - looks just right!
You nailed it.
Excellent job! Hopefully I can do this with my 1/48 version as I want to do a Wewak based one as well.
Ya done good Bill!