Tony
by Scott Scalfani
This is a Hasegawa’s 1/48 scale Kawasaki Ki61 Hien (Tony). To get the authentic looking Japanese camouflage, I first sprayed the entire model with Alclad Silver.
After letting it dry for 3 days, I over-sprayed it with Japanese Army Green using the Paasche airbrush with an H-1 tip. This was followed by a thinned Japanese Green with a little white mixed in. The aircraft was than washed with artist oil paint to bring out the panel lines and to blend it together.
For reference material, I used a photo of 244 Sendai found on Okinawa. This unit had red tails, except for this one. For some reason it was overpainted, but I left some patches with the red showing through.
The kit comes with a one piece windscreen. I slit it with an Xacto #11 to open it up. Contrary to what some think, the yellow ID line on the leading edge did not have hard edges, so I feathered it.
Photos by Jeff Junker