Kusakusa Gunpla

Even though I promised myself to build some gunpla during the winter, I instead went into gunpla hibernation. I started with teh Overflag late autumn　last year, and only in mid-spring did I finish it. Yeah, my building speed is a neck-breaking 2 gunpla per year. Anyway, unlike most kits I bought, I already had predetermined plans when I bought this kit: paint it and decal it like an aircraft. I had a bunch of aircraft decals so why not? My initial plan was to paint it green with Japanese aircraft decals but then I thought maybe I had too many green models so I opted for the white colored version of the WWII Zero Fighter plane.

The kit design itself is relatively uncomplicated, but somehow required more work than most MG kits. This is because of many visible seam-lines and some parts that needed pre-painting, masking and assembling. Case in point: the face visor. I painted the parts behind the face visor with silver, assembled the whole head and masked the visor part with tape. I also filled some gaps in the knee and foot with epoxy putty and added some detail parts on the chest & wing tips.

I was hoping for a creamy-white color for this kit, but I couldn’t find the appropriate spray can so I ended up buying a grey-white colored one. I sprayed Mr. Surfacer on the parts before spraying the grey-white color. Then I applied an enamel wash consisting of brown-yellow paint. The end result was somewhat more grey with a tint of blue. Then I made a last-minute decision to ditch the Zero fighter decal scheme and replace it with an American fighter decal scheme, which I thought was more matching with the final colors. Finally I applied some weathering in the form of rust color chipping and some soot/ash effects near the exhaust/turbine parts.

I didn’t really enjoy the building part of this kit, but the painting and decaling made up for it. I must say that this model kit is not very stable if you put it on standing position, due to the abnormally small feet. And in fighter mode it looks cool from certain angles but kinda awkward from other angles. So anyway, if you’ve read everything up to this point, I’ll put you out of your misery and present you with the pictures: