Scale model shopping in Akihabara, Tokyo
Ahhh Akihabara, otaku central of Tokyo. Games, electronics, maid cafes and of course, anime and manga products can all be found here. If you’re a scale modeler, you have to visit Akihabara if only to be amazed by the size of the selections offered in the shops. But any self-respecting geek would get at least one thing here. 😀
So I brought my toy car geek kid to Akihabara on 2 evenings and we hit 3 shops here.
TamTam Hobby Shop (Google maps)
TamTam Hobby Shop is a bit of a walk from Akihabara Station but we made the walk because it has one of the bigger toy car sections in Akihabara. The scale model section is not large and it doesn’t offer tax refund but I find the prices to be quite competitive.
Yellow Submarine (Google maps)
If you have a bit of time to browse, I think this is the best bet. The kit prices are lower than Yodobashi Camera although I think the prices for the tools are higher. What sets this shop apart from the other 2 are racks and racks of loose parts in ziplock bags. Need some specific part or weapon for your custom gunpla/sci-fi builds? This is it.
The shop is a bit hard to find since there’s no signage outside the building, but you can’t miss it once you find it: it takes up the whole of the 7th floor of the building. Another plus is AmiAmi is on the 5th floor in the same building so you can kill 2 birds with 1 stone.
Yodobashi Camera (Google maps)
Yodobashi Camera is the store you need to go if you have a limited time to spend for hobby shopping. The toy section covers a whole floor and dwarves both Yellow Submarine and TamTam Hobby Shop’s space combined. Looking for Gunpla? I dare say Yodobashi stocks all of them. They also have a big selection of military kits and has a whole wall of tools to gawk at and hoard.
One plus is it also sells regular toys for kids. They also offer in-store tax refund if you spend more than JPY 5,000.
So what did I get? Not as much as expected. I only bought stuff that I felt I wouldn’t be able to easily get here in Jakarta (as per SOP). The price of the airbrush was too hard to resist though. Interesting that the kits are all from 1980s anime licenses. Yeah I’m old.
Completed : Italeri 1/72 Mikoyan Gurevich MiG-37B Ferret E
Kit Info
Brand: Italeri 162
Scale: 1/72
Media: Injection Plastic
Markings: Various (see text)
The Subject
In 1986, Testors Model Corporation released a conceptual model airplane dubbed the F-19 Ghostrider. Their design was based on Lockheed’s real life ‘HAVE BLUE’ stealth fighter project of the 1970s. This F-19 design became the shape of the stealth fighter in the eyes of the public until the official unveiling of the F-117 Nighthawk in 1990. The MiG-37 was Testor’s concept of the Soviet counterpart for the F-19. Testors surprisingly got the MiG-37’s shape closer to the F-117 Nighthawk than their F-19 design.
The MiG-37 is a more conventional design than the F-19 and as conceptualized, is powered by dual non-afterburning Kumansky turbojets. It is larger than the F-19 and used many components (like the landing gear) from earlier MiG designs. Armaments include tactical nuclear weapons and radar-seeking air-to-ground missiles.
Info adapted from the instruction sheet
The Kit
The kit comes in the usual Italeri side opening box. There are 3 trees: 2 molded in black and 1 clear. This is a simple kit with only 54 parts. The quality of the plastic is typical of the 1980s: thick and brittle with simple details. What little panel lines there are are the raised type. Some things I’ve noted:
- cockpit details are (surprisingly) molded on, including harness details
- includes a clear part for the HUD though there’s no HUD mount
- canopy cannot be posed open
- bomb bay doors can be posed open
- 2 bombs and 2 missiles are included for the bomb bays. These look fictional.
- able to be modeled gear up
- no external stores or pylons
- airbrakes can be posed open
2 color options for the same aircraft, Bort 36, are included. I can’t determine the quality as my copy has yellowed and is already brittle but it looks to be typical Italeri stuff from the 1980s.
All in all, a very simple kit indeed with mold quality of its time.
The Build
Construction begins as usual with the cockpit. The details are simple but molded on. I added a harness with masking tape and busied the plain cockpit area with plastic plates. For the color I went with the weird green hue Soviet plane cockpits tend to come in. Perhaps the green is to keep the pilot’s Russuan bear tendencies at bay? Hah!
The kit came together very quickly but the fit is average in some spots while poor in others. I did the best I could and spent some time to eliminate the gaps that were as wide as 2mm wide. Stores-wise, I decided to keep the front bomb bay closed but I lost the aft bay doors so I mounted 1 of the bombs in there.
Colors & Markings
Both color schemes provided by Italeri are boring: 2-tone gray and white or all black. And since this is a Soviet aircraft, it deserves some splinter/digital camoflage. I went with all gray with a digital camo of black, blue and gray on the upper fuselage. Masking was a challenge but with the Aizu 1.5mm masking tape, the only real challenge was the time it took to mask the patterns. I’m glad to say the result was quite good with barely any paint bleeding or overspray.
Markings-wise, I had to trash the kit decals as they have degraded badly. I used markings from the Eagle Strike EP72092 ‘Sukhoi Su-27 641st Guards Fighter Aviation’ sheet. The stencils come from the Trumpeter Su-30MKK Flanker G kit. I also added a WWII-era Russian propaganda (??) marking on the starboard tail fin. This came from an Academy Il-2 Sturmovik kit.
Finishing
Panel wash was with the usual Mig AMMO Deep Down panel wash. To blend and lower the contrast between the camo colors together I filtered using the oil paint dot method with dark gray, white, yellow and blue oil paints.
I botched a bit of the final assembly and ended with glue stains in some spots that I had to buff out, repaint and weather. Now the bottom looks more patchy which I think adds to the look of an operational machine. The main gear doors also didn’t fit correctly but I made do with them.
All in all, not my best build by any measurement and the age of the kit really shows in the fitting and details. Still, it’s amazing to see how close Testors got with the shape to the F-117. I really should build the F-19 counterpart to this one. /Looks at my to-build pile…
Build Log
> Part 1 : Construction
> Part 2 : Painting & Finishing
Number 3 of 2019
WIP : Italeri 1/72 MiG-37 Ferret E – Painting & Finishing
Oof… it took quite a while to fix the gaps.
It was prime, fill, sand, buff, prime, fill, sand, buff over and over to finally get to the painting stage. I don’t think I did a banged-up job but it’ll have to do.
For the color scheme, I played around with the line-art and came up with the following. It’s not exactly a Soviet color scheme but I think it’ll be striking. It looks like a masking nightmare so I hope I can pull it off.
Colors begin with the usual black base.
Next a marble coat with white. I’m not sure how much of the marble coat will be visible once the camouflage is on so I made sure to add Glaze Medium to all the colors to make them less opaque.
The bottom and part of the top are one single color so these get tackled first with Mig AMMO Light Grey. With a color so light minor problems like scratches and spatters readily show up. These will be dealt with later.
For the digital camouflage, I decided to go from the dark to light colors so first on is Model Air Dark Panzer Grey which is really a very dark grey to the point of almost being black.
Then out with the masking tape to do the digital camouflage. Unfortunately I can’t see the immediate results until all 3 colors are painted on. So fingers crossed. 😀
Next is the dark blue using Game Air Sombre Grey.
Then more masking and the last color is Lifecolor Non Specular Blue Grey.
So how were the results? It turned out OK with no as much paint leak as expected. I think there needs to be less gray and more black though.
So I went back and added more camouflage. I think it looks better now. Not ideal but I’m moving on.
The stuff under the plane were also prepped and everything was gloss coated together. I lost one of my main wheels sp I modified the ones from the VF-0C kit to fit. They are the same height but different thickness. Luckily this is a fictional aircraft ey?
I kept the markings simple. The kit decals have degraded too much so I used markings from the Eagle Strike EP72092 ‘Sukhoi Su-27 641st Guards Fighter Aviation’ sheet. The stencils come from the Trumpeter Su-30MKK Flanker G kit. I also added a WWII-era Russian propaganda (??) marking on the starboard tail fin. This came from an Academy Il-2 Sturmovik kit.
Once wiped down and glossed the kit goes through the usual panel wash with Mig AMMO Deep Brown Wash.
While wiping off the panel wash, I managed to wipe off the paint on the peaks of sections on the bottom. /Face palm.
To blend the camouflage colors together, I did the oil paint dot filter method with white, dark gray, blue and yellow.
Once blended together, the contrast in the camouflage was reduced.
I then attached the (for lack of a better word) vanes in the exhaust area. Neither of their pegs fit into the their corresponding holes so I ended up cutting them off and butt joining with cement. I also sprayed some exhaust stains.
Next are the landing gear. The main gear doors are supposed to fit flush but they can’t due to the oleo on the landing gear. They also cannot be posed fully open because they would clear the bottom of the wheels. So I went with slightly opened instead. Since I couldn’t practically attach them without marring more of the painted surface, I left out the much smaller doors on the side. I took the opportunity to also patch up the paintwork that were stripped and re-weathered the areas.
I then handpainted the sensor bumps on the wingtips and fuselage before giving everything a flat coat. I then added the clear nose piece. I managed to lose the original so this is a replacement cut from a blister pack. Cockpit masking is as usual last off. All done!
Build Log
Part 1 – Construction | Part 2 – Painting & Finishing
Completed : Italeri 1/48 North American A-36 Apache
Kit Info
Brand: Italeri No. 2729
Scale: 1/48
Media: Injection Plastic
Markings: Kit
The Subject
The North American A-36 Apache (also listed as ‘Invader’ or ‘Mustang’) was the ground attack/dive bomber version of the P-51 Mustang. A total of 500 A-36s served in North Africa, the Mediterranean, Italy and the Chine-Burma-India theater during World War II before being withdrawn from service in 1944. The A-36 was a modified P-51 fitted with bomb racks, dive brakes and completely redesigned heavier-duty wings.
The A-36 proved to be a potent weapon as it could be consistently put into a vertical dive at 12,000 ft with the deployed dive brakes which limited the dive speed to 390 mph. Bomb release took place between 2,000 ft and 4,000 ft followed by an immediate sharp ‘pull up’. Besides dive bombing, the A-36 would also rack up 84 aerial victories and creating 1 ‘ace’, Lt. Michael T. Russo.
As fighting and hazardous missions intensified, the A-36 suffered a high loss rate of 177 falling to enemy action in all theaters. By June 1944, the A-36 in Europe were replaced by the P-40 Warhawk and P-47 Thunderbolt. Only the USAAF operated the A-36 with 1 lone aircraft supplied to the RAF for experimental purposes.
Info adapted from Wikipedia
The Kit
This is a rebox of the Accurate Miniatures kit from 1994. The Italeri boxing was first released in 2013. Inside the box are 3 gray and 1 clear sprues of plastic parts that barely take up 2/3 of the space. The kit is made up of 81 parts with only 2 clear parts that are not used. I’m assuming these are for the P-51 variant.
Details of the parts are nice with fine and consistent panel lines although they are not as sharp as modern kits. No flash is in sight but there are a few sink marks on the fuselage parts. Parts breakdown is straightforward with my following observations:
- the fuselage halves are molded as 2 separate parts: nose and main body
- the unique dive brakes on the wings are unfortunately, molded in place
- the canopy can only be installed closed
- 2x 500kg bombs are included and are made up of 6 parts each
- each tire is made up of 4 parts: 2 hubs and 2 wheel halves
- the instrument panel is a clear part
- both round and flattened tires are provided
- the clear parts are decent and a bit on the thick side but the frames are nicely molded
- the seat harness is a decal
- no options for lowered flaps
Italeri provides for 3 USAAF and 1 RAF marking options that cover A-36s from the European, African and Chine-Burma-India theaters. The one on the box cover with the shark mouth is the most interesting to me. They are nicely printed with sharp details and good register.
I did a quick dryfit of the major parts and they fit quite well. All in all, it should be a straightforward build.
The Build
As with all the prop kits I’ve built so far, progress was fast. The cockpit was quickly painted and weathered and installed before both halves of the fuselage came together. The cockpit interior looks nicely busy with quite a bit of details in the sidewalls. Alas, these weren’t visible once the fuselage was put together. I scratchbuilt the seat harness since it’s good for practice and looks better than the decal.
I built each half first then joined them together instead of the called for assembly of the front and back separately. This way I avoided the chance of a step at the joint between the nose and the main body.
I decided to go with the flattened wheels and hope I can get the orientation correct when I install them. For the wings, I attached the 1 piece bottom wing to the fuselage first before attaching the top sides. This makes it easier to minimize any gaps in the wingroots.
The landing gear, propeller and bombs were all prepped separately. The tail gear had to be installed when the 2 fuselage halves were joined. Luckily I managed to not break this part throughout the build.
The kit includes 4 barrels for the wing guns but a check online of A-36 photos show that they don’t protrude so I left them off.
The only real issue I had was a seamline on an indented area on the nose. I tried to fill it some liquid putty without much luck. In the end, I decided to live with the seamline. I also managed to break off one of the nose gun barrels which I had to carefully re-attach at the end of the build.
/waves Jedi hand: ‘You did not see the gap on the nose. Move along…’
Colors & Markings
All the options are in the same color scheme: Olive Drab over Medium Gray. I did my usual combination of black base, white marble coat then main color. This time, I used Tamiya acrylic paint thinned with lacquer thinner for the marble coat which took less time and was much easier to control and execute. The main colors were thinned quite a bit with drops of flow improver and glaze medium added to reduce the opacity so the marble coat shows up more. I think they worked quite well and had an atypical satin smooth finish and I’ll be doing the same going forward. The demarcations were done with blutack so they are a bit soft.
Markings-wise I was going to model the A-36 piloted by Lt. Bert Benear of the 526th Fighter Squadron, 86th Fighter Group flying over Italy in 1944. The badass shark mouth sold it for me. The decals for the wing bands don’t account for the grills on the dive brakes so I decided to make my life easier by masking and painting them instead. These were a custom mix of yellow and a bit of orange. I think I might overdone the color, but they matched well with the yellow in the other decals. The decals were robust, went on easily and reacted well with Mark Softer.
Finishing
I began with chipping using silver acrylic paint. I also used the main colors on the silver chips to knock the contrast down slightly. Once cured I did the usual panel wash with Mig AMMO Deep Brown panel line wash. Once the panel washes have been cleaned up I installed the landing gear.
I then used white, dark gray and dark brown oil paint as filters for the kit. These knock down the contrast even more so once dried, I went back in and added more chipping which gives the look of both ‘old’ and ‘new’ paint chips. The gun port residue was done with Tamiya Weathering Master. The exhaust stains were done in the same way but I also carefully sprayed some black gray acrylic paint to deepen the colors.
The whole kit was then given a flat coat and last on were the bombs, antenna and painting the wing lights. I decided not to add aerials this time.
So… not a bad result though I think I could improve on areas like the randomness of the chips and being more careful with masking of the canopy. The kit itself though, fits well and is recommended.
Build Log
> Part 1 : Construction
> Part 2 : Cockpit
> Part 3 : Painting
> Part 4 : Finishing
Number 02 of 2019
WIP : Italeri 1/48 A-36 Apache Pt. 4 – Finishing
Once all the paint has cured, I gave the whole kit a once over with gloss coat.
For the scheme I’m doing, there are yellow wing bands which cut across the dive brakes. The decals for these don’t account for the openings on the dive brakes so to make my life easier, I decided to mask and spray the bands.
The decals for the bands are 1cm in width but the instructions show they are narrower. I decided to follow the instructions. These were a custom mix of yellow with some orange mixed in. These were sprayed over a base of some white marble coat which helps with opacity.
The decals are quite robust and went on quite easily and reacted well to Mark Softer. While looking at the marking callouts I noticed that a small part of the tailfin is supposed to be white color. This was quickly masked off and sprayed.
As usual with WWII subjects, there are a general lack of stencils. Not that I’m complaining.
The shark mouth decal took a fair bit of adjusting. I really should have cut it into 2 and re-align them.
I did the best I can with the placement and fixed the gaps with paint. However, if you looked closely, there are 2 wrinkles on the decal that I couldn’t get rid off.
Shark mouths are always cool.
Once the decals have cured and wiped down with a wet cloth, they were given a gloss coat. Next I added chipping using silver, olive drab and medium gray paint. These were added with a sponge.
I chipped random spots all over the fuselage simulating wear and tear. Heavier chipping was done for the leading edges of the wings and where I assume there’s more foot traffic.
While I used a silver color for the topside chips, I went with a black color for the bottom which shows up more on the gray. As you can see, 1 of the nose gun barrels have broken off. As usual, there’s always some sort of last minute disasters to fix.
Next is panel washing with Mig AMMO Dark Brown Wash. This fills the panel lines which add ‘depth’ and ‘weight’ to the kit. It’s subtle on the olive drab side.
It’s more obvious on the gray side.
To tone down the contrast I filtered with white, dark gray and dark brown oil paints. The filters also toned down the chipping I did.
The filters were done in the direction of air flow so it’s front to back on the wings and up and down on the fuselage.
I added more brown filters behind the main gear.
The wheel well were given a simple wash to pop the details.
To show that there are ‘new’ and ‘old’ chips I went back in and added more. Tamiya Weathering Masters was used for the soot on the gun barrels and exhaust stains. The exhaust stains were enhanced with some light spraying of Model Air Dark Panzer Grey.
The masking tape is finally removed from the canopy and… it’s OK. There are some dust spots inside the canopy that I’ll have to live with. I’m quite happy how visible the scratchbuilt harnesses are.
The bombs are finally attached. I also weathered them and figuring that operationally no one will really bother with being neat with an expendable weapon, I handpainted the yellow rings that indicated that the bombs were ‘live’.
Then the antennas are attached and the wing lights were painted. I decided skip the aerials this time and I’m finally done!
Build Log
Part 1 – Construction | Part 2 – Cockpit | Part 3 – Painting | Part 4 – Finishing
