Tamiya 1/72 scale
P-51D Mustang

by Sérgio Luiz

I have no fidelity to any scale but usually I'm dealing with 1/48 and 1/35 scale models.

At some point in 2016 I was bored with the issues on the kits I were building and decided to start a new one. "This one will be fully for fun, no matter what" I thought. Having a japaneses star-spangled kit (not only the box, but the trees!) on my hands, I was eager to have a flawless building experience and this project took me three weekends. Pretty fast for my average performance.

The original decals were rubbish-level yellowed. Just before hitting "buy it now" on my browser I looked into never open container boxes and found an Eagle Strike's Blue Nose Birds of Bodney (IP7207) decal sheet in usable condition. Blue nose, red tail, invasion stripes and a big golden nose art looked a nice contrasting color combination. The building ran absent of issues and was fun as I expected, rapidly reaching the painting stage. According to my research, StrawBoss 2 had no external antenna cable and I felt reliefed for that.

Natural Metal Finish painting is a skill I gotta build, not only improve. For this Mustang I used Mr. Surface 1200 grey primer, Gaia Color Ex-Silver (Ex-07) and custom tinted polyester automotive repair paints for tail and nose. I tried to make some different NMF shades but dropped too much black in the silver. Next time I'll try it with medium and dark gray colors. For nose coating I really wanted a more bright blue instead of the pen-like color we usually see on Mustangs.

For weathering I did a pin-wash in order not to change the beautiful silver look. Some pastel chalk on exhausts, gun ejection ports and close to gears, a tiny drop of oil paint on the fuel tank lid and the job was done. I was so pleased with the final look that decided to make a base for this model.

Photo shooting is another skill I haven't masterized so the shades vary from picture to picture and illumination is not very well distributed.

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Thumbnail panels:

Eventually the model was rewarded 1st place (US aircraft WW2 1/72 scale) on IPMS Brazil (São Paulo) 2016 convention.

Even 20 years after released, Tamiya 72nd warbird series are still a guaranteed weeked fun source with decent detail level.

Cheers,

Sérgio Luiz
Brasília-DF
Brazil

Model and Text Copyright © 2021 by Sérgio Luiz
Page Created 5 October, 2021
Last Updated 2 November, 2021

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