Thank you , John@johnb, Lis@lis, Marcus@mvtb and Spiros@fiveten. I worked out the version of the Kate I will do and made sure the kit decals will cover it (they are more than adequate to compete the numbers). I will be doing the aircraft of Matsumura Hirata, of the Carrier Hiryu (second from the top).
It has the same interesting brown splotches over the green camo of the kit version and is of the same squadron but was differently armed for the Pearl Harbor attack, since it carried a torpedo. I checked my other kit of the Guadalcanal Kate and realized it is not a later version, just a B5N2 which happens to have a spinner over the prop hub and a torpedo. I can easily use the torpedo and harness for the Pearl Harbor attacker. Over the weekend, I assembled and painted most of the fine details for the pit and painted it overall Gunze Nakajima Cockpit Green.
This is a really nice color, paler than the Tamiya IJN Cockpit Green. I will do an oil pinwash to bring out detail once the paint is fully cured. I also did the etch and paper IP from Eduard.
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1. Sanded off all kit detail to install the etch here. I always feel bad doing this as so much nice 3D detail is destroyed to make way for the etch.
It was very fiddly to fit but looks pretty good in the end. It is not a pre-painted set, so I had to spray the panel Tamiya Flat Black. I try to take advantage of the fragility of the acrylic paint to let a bit wear off from handling to highlight the trim around each individual instrument bezel. You can see this if the light strikes at the correct angle.
I find doing etch IPs is quite fiddly when you need to get each instrument lined up correctly behind the photo-etch. I used Gator Glue instead of Superglue this time in order to allow some tweaking of the fit. I think it looks pretty good. I got some pre-shade for the engine cylinders done in Flat Black while doing the IP etch.
I will do the weathering/wash next and detail painting on the side panels. Painting and installing seat belts and final assembly will follow. Most of the kit parts are for the interior, so further assembly shouldn't take long. Test fitting of major components so far shows excellent fit! I am waiting for canopy masks in the mail. Hopefully, they will be better-fitting than the ones I just used on my Hasegawa Skyhawk. That's it for now. Comments welcome.
