Well folks, if you have seen my brother Bob's post published back on October 16, 2020 (link) post will look somewhat familiar. In fact I asked Bob whether if is was even necessary to post the following. He was emphatic that I should post my own journey, so here we go. As you will recall from our readings (😄) Operation Vengeance was some payback for Pearl Harbor. It was a mission to take down the Pearl Harbor mastermind, Admiral Yamamoto. Intelligence reports put him in a G4M1 Betty (Tail number 323) with escort. Our mission was to intercept and shoot him down, which was accomplished by P 38s of the 339th Fighter Squadron out of Guadalcanal, April 18, 1943. Our idea was twofold, use 1/200 AIM models so that we could create a diorama as well as play with mission in a Wings of Glory game scenario. My order finally arrived and I went to work. As I said some of this may seem familiar, and my work did take some different directions, but I think the results were quite similar to Bob's.
As did Bob, first task is to file off all those G4M2 protuberances to revert back to the G4M1.
Also it is necessary to remove the molding screws which was a real pain for the P 38.
Both models were then undercoated.
I went ahead with simultaneous painting. Since the P 38 needed nothing special I emulated my brothers P 38 paint job. All that is needed to complete it is the Miss Virginia/147 decals Bob is sending me. It is Miss Virginia (a borrowed aircraft) that is officially credited with shooting down Betty 323 killing Yamamoto. I applied some green acrylic to seal off the required putty work on the Betty (covering windows that were not on the G4M1). I silvered in the remaining windows and the prop spinners as my brother did.
I do not have the same paint Bob does, so I mixed my own green and black to create the IJN dark green. It took a couple of coats as I used it as primer and final. The matte finish is pretty good.
Once dry I went right to decals. I did the top wing first to get a feel for what was necessary (all decals are different). I found out quickly that the images are not separate on the sheet; therefore, each image has to be closely cut out to minimize excess film. The images did release quickly from the backing paper which allow the placement to proceed quickly.
I moved to the fuselage to mask for the white square on which the Hinomaru is placed.
And the Hinomaru went on easily. I did save a bit of time and tape due to the uniformity of fuselage. I wrapped two pieces around the fuselage in order that the longitudinal alignment would be the same on both sides. The top view shows this.
Ok, next we mask for the yellow wing edge markings and then paint them in.
Things get a bit more fiddly now that I move to the Yamamoto tail number - 323. The decal sheet contains tail markings for the G4M2, fortunately the number sets all start with 3, but only two of the sets contain the number 2 - I have to be very careful. All of the numbers have to be cut and placed individually. Here we go.
Success! Note that the tip is painted white. I masked and painted first before the decals, but this was a little controversial (in my opinion) because renderings of the Betty show with and without the white tip. Bob went with it so I did too.
I show this underside view simply for the Hinomaru placed. I am not that happy with the underside as I got careless after the initial painting (it was a custom mix). When attempting the panel line washing and painting I got thinner on my fingers that messed up a portion of the fuselage. Try as I might I could not exactly replicate the initial color - my bad. So I have a rather muddy result. While not horrible I will consider it unintentional weathering.
Better news topside as I found some correct size PE to use for the radio loop!
Looks good to me!!
I also was able to heat and stretch sprue for the antenna - a first for me to stretch sprue this thin - something my brother is too excellent at.😆
As can be seen I was able to stretch enough for nose and tail guns as well. This bird is done for now, but still missing the dorsal and waist blisters on the G4M1. Bob used some old parts for fabricating those on his Betty and has put some of those in the mail along with the Miss Virginia decals. That will be my challenge - don't screw up this good work trying to add the blisters after-the-fact. Stand By!
Here is the beginnings of a diorama idea. Discussed is a larger base with jungle canopy, a beach, both Betty's, both P 38s and perhaps a Zero or two and a nice sky backdrop. I'm the ocean/beach guy and Bob is the backdrop/photoshop guy. Not sure yet how this will be coordinated but I think it will require a get together.
Bob's parts and decals arrived today so I went right to work cutting and filing the bombs into blisters for the G4M1.
It's going fairly well and I have not destroyed anything (yet).
Fiddly painting turned out half way decent.
Decals at 1/200 scale almost blind me, but I got them down! Man, the "Miss Virginia" is really tiny.
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