Yesterday I started working in my new project. It's Ki-43-I Hayabusa Fujimi that I bought a half year ago. It was fraught with a few strange events related to the pink moon's super fullness. First things first.
First, the cockpit and engine. Second I had a good fortune in the form of buying a set of Rising Decals.

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Interior looks awesome, @lis. Looking forward to the rest of the build.

Thank you all for the kind words. They motivate me to work. Unfortunately, I have already made one mistake. The instrument panel should be black. Out of habit with Zero fighters, I painted it in Nakajima cockpit green. the cockpit is a set of eduard photo-etched parts. Not too big as I like it. Overall, the big sets for photo-etched parts rather put me off. I usually prefer slightly expanded box designs with really necessary parts that are missing. And usually in older models it is the cockpit. And in all of them there is a need to replace the gun barrels and pitot tubes.

I am unfortunately not convinced. The instrument panel has an imitation of glass in clocks. brushing, even with light brush, can spoil the result. the only option is to disassemble the cockpit and repaint.

Besides, I am also not a fan of painting large flat surfaces with a brush. there is always a trace. Everything was painted with the areograph. If you don't tell anyone, maybe it will go to Nakajima Green 🙂

I'm very disapointed for Fujimi's kit impercections. After long days of sanding and putting Hayabusa had black Mr Finish surfacer 1500. I had to also putting landing lamp because Ki-43-I didn't have it. Plastic is very soft and cut pieces from sprue could damage it. I have question. What do you think about paint Vallejo Metal color Aluminium?

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I have some of them: aluminium, dull Aluminium, Chrome, steel. I am not sure if my skills allow me to play with painting different panels with different shades, but I would like to try one of these paints. Aluminum or dull aluminum. There is stainless steel ball in the tin. the manual recommends gunze 08 paint. I have painted the propeller with this shade and the landing gear covers so far. Is this paint durable on large surfaces? how does the clearcoat take?

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I try to paint ailerons and rudders in grey-green colour. Next step will be overall painting in silver-aluminium colour.

1 attached image. Click to enlarge.