Patrick_Nevin Posted August 10, 2008 Share Posted August 10, 2008 All, As it's PACAIR, can I pick the brains of those who know (briefly)? I do one Japanese aircraft, I want to do more. They are deeply appealing, judging from the fine work I've trawled through on this GB - a tonic from the Luftwaffe subjects that usually drive me. I've found www.j-aircraft.com (and it's ace.) To supplement this, if I wanted a good, single, ideally not stupid-expensive reference for Japanese aircraft (i.e the equivalent of Brown's 'Wings of the Luftwaffe') what would you recommend? Also, I went onto Hannants confidently expecting to have to scale up the page size when asking for 48th Japanese decals. And there's about a page and a half with (narrowed down) maybe *5* relevant hits there. Where do the IJN-devotees go for colours? For that matter, etch & resin? MTIA - Patrick Quote Link to post Share on other sites
johnsan Posted August 10, 2008 Share Posted August 10, 2008 (edited) Careful, Japanese subjects can be addictive. As to an all around reference, I'd start with Francillon's Japanese Aircraft of the Pacific War. It's not detail oriented, but gives a good overview of most Japanese aircraft. It has some photos and general aspect drawings. For color research beyond j-aircraft, check out Nick Millman's site. Make sure you check out his links, as they are very useful. You should also search out the quarterly magazine Arawasi International. They have a website at http://arawasi.jp I noticed you are from the UK. You should check out the IPMS Japanese SIG. For paints, some swear by WEM, but I'm very partial to Mr Color and Gaia color lacquers. I don't build 48th so I can't really help you with pe, resin, or decals. In any case, Evergreen strip can go a long way in adding missing detail. HTH, j Edited August 10, 2008 by johnsan Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Patrick_Nevin Posted August 10, 2008 Author Share Posted August 10, 2008 Careful, Japanese subjects can be addictive. Yes, I get that impression Many thanks for the helpful reply! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
achook-achook Posted August 11, 2008 Share Posted August 11, 2008 (edited) Hi Patrick, I am a big Japanese aircraft fan myself and more than 50% of my collection is on this subject. Maybe a reason why I am partial on this is that a lot of them flew and were stationed in my country during the war. Francillion's book is a good start. For colors and markings, you can start with Don Thorpe's book on the IJN and IJA. For the air units, Hata and Izawa's book on IJN and IJA fighter units are a must read if you want to know more on the operational side. Plus there are other publications from Mushroom, Schiffer, *****, etc. that focuses on specific aircraft. For decals, you can go to Squadron.com and look into the Aeromaster and Eaglestrike Production decals, they have good ones on Japanese aircraft. Arawasi.jp is also worth visiting. On colors, WEM has good paint matches but just like johnsan, I am partial with Gunze Mr. Color paints and they have the Nakajima, Mitsubishi and Kawasaki equivalents. The J-aircraft site is fantastic and there are guys there that can provide and point you to good references. I have posted and exchanged info there for quite some time. and yes, it can be very addicting. Up to the point where where I stumble upon a few relics myself whenever I do my research on airfields: Found a pair of A6M Zero landing struts and a single N1K1-J Shiden landing strut during my exploration of the old Japanese airfield at Bamban, Tarlac several years ago. I just happen to be in the photo just for the scale effect. Cheers, Tony Edited August 11, 2008 by achook-achook Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Touvdal Posted August 11, 2008 Share Posted August 11, 2008 Patrick you got me inspired, going to pull out some Japanese planes from my stash. Tony interesting find, you made there. cheers Jes Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Patrick_Nevin Posted August 11, 2008 Author Share Posted August 11, 2008 Found a pair of A6M Zero landing struts and a single N1K1-J Shiden landing strut during my exploration of the old Japanese airfield at Bamban, Tarlac several years ago. I just happen to be in the photo just the scale effect. I come to ARC for posts like this. Thankyou for that reply. Jes, sorry, another tangent to go off on. But it is interesting Quote Link to post Share on other sites
bilkeau Posted August 11, 2008 Share Posted August 11, 2008 Hi there Patrick, Decent English language refs for Japanese subjects can take some hunting down. In the past I've ordered the Aero Detail "Oscar" and "George" books from Christian Schmidt in Germany. Japanese language Gakken and Model Art titles (I like these!) have been obtained from Arawasi in Japan, which Johnsan gave you the URL for. Kagero do Polish/English monographs on the Nate and Frank, which should ba available in Blighty. The Hannants search engine is, at best, frustrating, and I don't know if you discovered that it's more productive to search by type, eg:Ki-84. Searching for Ki84 or Ki 84 won't work. Here are links to some Japanese websites and blogs. The text will appear as gibberish on your screen, but have fun clicking on all the links - the pics are worth it! 244 Sentai, which is part of this site: More Tonys and 244 Sentai General IJAAF photos (Could have sworn that there was a similar site for IJN planes too, but can't find the link.) All the links on Nick Millman's blog are well worth a click, of course. Nick Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Patrick_Nevin Posted August 11, 2008 Author Share Posted August 11, 2008 Here are links to some Japanese websites and blogs. The text will appear as gibberish on your screen, but have fun clicking on all the links - the pics are worth it! Wow, long time no see, sir! How are you? I intend to do a Dora Wulf at some point when more skilled and ref you as inspiration :( Very much appreciate the additional help - thankyou. This thread has helped me greatly, not least as the kind Boxster is currently mailing me a large (24th) Japanese fighter and mistakes will be obvious in this scale. Excellent... Much obliged - Patrick Quote Link to post Share on other sites
johnsan Posted August 11, 2008 Share Posted August 11, 2008 For the Japanese language websites, Google's language tools is a Godsend. You'll get machine translation so it's a bit strange, but at least you won't be clicking blind and you will get an idea of what's being said. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
David_Aiken Posted August 22, 2008 Share Posted August 22, 2008 Japanese language... Right click in a spacy area of your desktop...the popup should have the word 'encoding' which leads to the variety of languages you have already on your Windows XP. "Japanese" may be one of these... You may also obtain kanji by doing a free download from Microsoft... You may also do a Google for such free downloads... AND also keep the Google translator handy for machine translations to get a good jist of what is said. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Patrick_Nevin Posted September 9, 2008 Author Share Posted September 9, 2008 You gents who kindly recommended Francillon to me - thankyou! Arrived today, was a tiny bit underwhelmed initially: it's a physically small book. Then I started to look through it... It's a treasure trove, and will I'm sure become an old friend. What an excellent reference! Thanks, guys Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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