Hasegawa's 1/48 scale
A6M2 Zero Model 21

by Jordi Farre
 

  

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This Zero is Hasegawa's rendition of an A6M2 mod.21 in 1/48 scale.

I wanted to build a different Rei-sen and for this reason I choose a kamikaze one, it's a well-known type shown in a famous photograph of "Shikishima Tai" or the first kamikaze unit of the war when it was about to take off from Mabalacat, Philipines for their first and last mission on October 25th, 1944.

The cockpit has been enhanced with Eduard P-etched parts as well as some scratchbuilt ones, the building is straightforward and presents no serious problems.

In order to represent a Nakajima-built fighter-bomber I simply cut the antenna mast tip, to give it an A6M5 look, and installed the larger spinner already included in the kit. The bomb is a 250 kgs. one taken from Hasegawa's B5N1 with thinned fins and a lengthened body and its rack came from Fine Molds brand.

Once finished, I masked the cockpit and sprayed a coat of enamel aluminum in order to "bite" a little the plastic and prepare it for the following camo colors, once dry I airbrushed Tamiya acrylic varnish to allow the green camouflage paint to be easily removed.

After letting it dry for two days or so I masked some upper surface areas with Maskol applied with a toothpick, as soon as the maskol has solidified I applied the camouflage colors the normal way, in this case Tamiya's IJN Green and Grey, using several shades to give the paint a used look, as soon as they are dry to the touch I removed the maskol and retouched the chipping with a used cutter blade, I also reproduced tiny scratches here and there with a used needle, the acrylic paint is easily removed because of its poor adhesion to the smooth natural metal surface found beneath it and a natural-looking paint chipping can be achieved thanks to this technique.

The undersurface chipping was done simply with dark grey paint and also a normal drawing pencil. Near and inside the wheel wells and landing gear I applied a very-diluted earth color with an airbrush to simulate dust and dried mud.

Oooops, almost forgot to add, the hinomarus have been masked and airbrushed and the 02-888 and manufacturer's plate found in the spare-decals box.

Once the model looks right to you, a highly dilluted and lightened with white IJN green mist is sprayed again to give the Zero an homogeneous look, finally another coat of Tamiya's clear varnish is needed to protect the colors from the following washes and filters to simulate dirt and enhance faded paint.

After a few finishing touches such as installing the canopy, pitot tube, bomb, position lights, antenna mast and aerial, the model was ready to be put in the showcase!

Click the thumbnails below to view larger images:

Model, Images and Text Copyright © 2007 by Jordi Farre
Page Created 03 April, 2007
Last Updated 24 December, 2007

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