1/72 Revell Ki-61 & Zvezda Samurai

Gallery Article by Greg Kerry on Jan 29 2016

 

      

This is the second of my magic realist dios. Unlike the US Cavalry example there is no really clear connection between air and ground subjects - beyond the obvious fact that they're both Japanese. I chose the Revell Tony mainly because of its colorful markings which I hoped would kind of complement the Samurais' own colorful costumes and banners. In fact, the most obvious visual connection is the red meatball insignia which can't really be missed.

The Ki-61 is a much older kit than I imagined it to be: all raised panel lines and rivets, poor cockpit detail, and flash. Still, with a bit of cleaning up it produced a half-decent model. The decals are excellent with good color density and so on. Applying them is the hard part: the fuselage stripes are long and thin, the wings' yellow stripes really need cutting apart where they fold around the gun barrels and even then a little white glue may be needed to really fix them in place. Painting was done using Humbrol aluminium (from an Airfix Starter Kit) which brush-painted really well even accepting varnish later - a far cry from the old Humbrol enamel silvers I recall from years ago.

Click on images below to see larger images

The Zvezda Samurai are moulded in semi-hard plastic and don't clean up too badly. Mind you, painting Samurai in this small scale is nothing if not hard work - especially if you're not used to such figures (which were well outside my comfort zone). I won't be doing any more. . . .

The base is nothing but a very cheap picture frame. Groundwork was built up with expanded polystyrene, covered in my usual glue-soaked tissue paper and real dirt, painted with acrylics. The tree is a garden weed thing, grass is old brush bristles.

The atmospheric pictures were created using Windows photo editing Vignette feature (nothing fancy).

Greg Kerry

Photos and text © by Greg Kerry