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Fine Molds 1/48 D4Y2 Suisei (Judy) Type 12 Night Fighter


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Hi ARC, I had an enjoyable holiday to Tokyo, Japan recently and I got hooked on a series called Kantai Collection over there.

It’s rather niche but is picking up in popularity; (Whole floors in buildings in Akihabara are dedicated to it) it best describes as hybridizing the allure of anime with WW2 machinery, more accurately the WW2 naval ships. A perfect match for the anime and military nerd in you.

More details can be seen here, but it's the usual anime styling so it may not be everyone's cup of tea...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kantai_Collection

Getting back home and high as a kite on kancolle, I felt like building something ww2 Japanese… so Fine molds 1/48 D4Y2 Judy was chosen to be the next victim of my mediocre modelling skills.

Starting off with the cockpit:

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Untitled by df0084, on Flickr

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Untitled by df0084, on Flickr

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Untitled by df0084, on Flickr

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Untitled by df0084, on Flickr

Bit of a mistake there on top of the radio box,I glued the wrong part on, but with the final construction, that mistake should be hidden nicely.

It seems that japanese ww2 planes interior colors are not harmonized, some come in light green, brownish green or just plain aotake.

Tried doing the silver drybrush in the cockpit effect, but I didn't do too much as it's my first trial.

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Untitled by df0084, on Flickr

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Untitled by df0084, on Flickr

Instrument panel is a plain flat decal. Didn't go on too nicely though...

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Untitled by df0084, on Flickr

I really liked the late war Japanese plane designs as they came out with some really aggressive and cool looking stuff such as the J7W Shinden and gull winged B7A Ryusei. Another fave is the D4Y Suisei or Judy in its inline engine guise which is quite rare for a Japanese plane.

Originally designed by the Yokosuka Naval Air Technical Arsenal (Or Kugisho for short in its Japanese guise) as the next generation replacement for the D3A Val dive bomber, it’s high performance saw it being used for many duties: dive bomber, reconnaissance, kamikaze strike and nightfigher.

Originally it had the inline Aichi Atsuta engine before being switched over to the more familiar radial type due to maintenance problems.

The Atsuta engine’s aggressive looking intercooler and lines attracted me and I grabbed the D4Y2-S Nightfigher boxing which came with white metal parts for the Type 99 cannon slant-fitted in the back cockpit.

Despite the company name, the D4Y Judy isn’t really particularly finely moulded as compared to a Hasegawa kit of a similar subject. Wings and some parts are slightly out of alignment but fixable and some details are just barely so-so on.

Despite this being only my second 1/48 prop plane kits, I hope I can get the Judy built successfully… lol.

More build details coming soon!

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Nice work so far, you don't see the type being built very often compared to Zeroes so looking forward to seeing this finished!

I'm starting to get into Kancolle too, even though the subject may be a bit controversial for non-Japanese and difficult to access for non-Japanese gamers.

Hope you had a nice holiday in Tokyo. If you had stayed a little longer, you could have gone to the All Japan Model Hobby Show at the Big Sight this weekend! :D

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Thanks white wolf!

I was there only for an enjoyable 2 weeks but I hoped I could stay longer. Theres so much to see and do it's a real mecca for us.

I did manage to be there for the 2015 summer Wonder Festival though and scored some sweet Kancolle resin figures of the Yahagi and U-511.

Found a nice article too, it looks like Kancolle is doing wonders for the Japanese modelling scene!

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/cool_japan/style/AJ201407170009

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