Now we have come to the reason why I chose this particular aircraft. From the US crashed Enemy Aircraft Report (CEAR), the plane was painted a light blue (most likely a faded version of Japanese blue), with the undersides unpainted. I have heard of blue painted Japanese aircraft, but have never come across concrete evidence until I read up on this one in the j-aircraft forum and in Pacific Profiles Vol 1. I know there are accounts in Japanese of veterans recalling blue aircraft, but I have not read them. It's not that I don't believe them, but I was able to finally convince myself that these blue planes were not made up.
With Nick Millman's help (Aviation of Japan blog, go visit it, its an amazing site with incredible research) I used a 2:3 mix of Mr Color C328 (FS 15050 Blue Angels blue) and C72 (Intermediate blue). Keeping in mind my Ki-44 build (https://imodeler.com/groups/the-empire-of-japan-1919-1946/forum/topic/1-48-hasegawa-ki-44-ii-ko/), of a field camouflaged plane, I considered how this plane was painted. It may have been painted nicely, with a smooth and even finish, or it may have been sprayed more locally, with the ground crew member trying to do his best to cover the plane evenly, but knowing that getting the plane operational was more important. So I chose the latter.
From the photo, the field applied paint flaked off and so covered the entire topsides with hairspray. I made sure to spray the rudder and hinomaru with hairspray because then I could use that to easily remove any overspray . I painted the plane in a back and forth motion, mimicking the arm's length back and forth motion of a spray gun (like Mr Miagi taught us). I wanted the pattern to be visible, but not starkly so, Yoshi did have to do a decent job of it. I think it turned pretty well. I am happy with the thickness of the paint , although there could be more variation in the tones. I thought about black basing before the blue, but I can address this afterwards with post shading, oils, weathering, etc.
I have the white theatre band to paint yet (need to be careful with masking as I don't want to pull up the blue paint just yet when removing the masks). Also I need to paint the IFF band on the gear doors, and then proceed with chipping the blue paint off, copying the few photos of this aircraft, as well as others of similar planes in the theatre.
You'll see that I remembered to paint the elevators. Unfortunately this was done after they were painted blue, so the red (a mix of C327 USAF Thunderbirds red and LP-18 Dull Red, to be different shade of red from the hinomaru) came out a bit darker/different than the elevator. I will address this at the weathering stage.
That's it for now!
6 attached images. Click to enlarge.
