Hasegawa 1/72 Idolmaster2 Mirage 2000

[EagleOnyx]

Hey I'm working on this 1/72 Hasegawa Mirage 2000 in The Idolmaster2 Anime character paint scheme. I've never played the game that these correspond to but I liked the designs and strangeness of these kits. It's definitely different. I guess Hasegawa doesn't actually produce the plastic for all of these kits as this one is a Reboxed Revell kit.

The Box Cover


The Star of the show: The Decals!

They look pretty nice. Metallic stripes n stuff.


Yayoi Takatsuki Herself! Very nicely detailed. When you look up close you can see the dot matrix style printing which is kind of a disappointment.


The Sprues


The panel lines are engraved but they are very soft and shallow





Pretty basic exhaust


Cockpit details aren't too bad for this scale I guess.


Except here! Ejector pin marks right on the side consoles! Who thought that was a good idea? There are actually pin marks all over the place. Look at the tires. Jeez.


Instructions are easy to follow but they are completely in Japanese



Full Color Decal placement guide.


They go on in a certain color coded order


I had to buy Gunze Mr. Color paints so I could match the paint mixing chart as designed. Gunze paints work wonderfully!

[EagleOnyx]

Assembly begins with the cockpit. I'm painting the canopy metallic blue to block out the cockpit view. I wanted to accelerate the build, so I'm skipping painting the cockpit. It doesn't look that bad though. maybe I should have painted it...



Glue up


Seam work ahead!


It came with these resin things to stick to the back. the instructions call out removing some of the plastic by the exhaust to fit them


The left side has the material removed and the right side is stock.


Here they are installed


The wing section fits to the bottom but it's not a perfect fit. The gaps on the uppers were manageable.


The intakes fit wasn't great. I got a step on both sides that needed sanding and filler. you can see the not perfect alignment of the forward section of the wings. I painted the intakes before gluing to ensure I got good color coverage in there.



Here is a gap shot, I suck at filling gaps. I used superglue and Mr. Surfacer 500.


Here is where I am now with the base color coat on

[LifesGoodDH]

That's really good work on a rather ... eccentric topic. JK!

It's kind of cool that Hasegawa actually redid the instructions and did their take on a Revell kit. I can't stand Revell instructions and while I don't read Japanese, Hasegawa's instructions are for the most part very intuitive.

[EagleOnyx]

I started the decals. I started with the bottom, that way if I screwed it up it wouldn't matter as much. They are pretty thick. one of them tore a little when I tried to press it into place over some details. Thankfully that area will be covered by another decal. I am trying Mr. Mark Setter and Mr. Mark Softer on them as I have heard they work well with Japanese decals.


This is the side that tore when I tried to force it over the RWR antenna




this is where I'm quitting for the night. It's actually going a lot better than I thought it would. The decals had me nervous but they are holding up well.

[EagleOnyx]

Some more work done today!

WhoopS! I forgot to remove the decal number before applying! No worries though because I caught it in time.


Some of the decals need to go over some serious bumps. I'm not sure how its going to smooth out in the long run, but it might be ok.


The white decals aren't 100% opaque, but they are pretty close. Still working this decal over the RWR antenna


The Decals are fitting very nicely overall.


The bottom is nearly done


I'll get the white stripes on the top side after the bottom side sets up all the way.

[MrModelling]

Christ, my pride would never allow me to built such thing... along with my patience

[EagleOnyx]

lol It's different, that's for sure. I like things that are different. These kits are definitely not for everyone; which is completely understandable.

[oldstratfordian]

Great Plane, great scheme, shame no one has actually thought of painting it on a real plane.

[UKguyInUSA]

That's too cute to be classed as a military aircraft!

[EagleOnyx]

It seems like pretty much all of you guys seemed to hate this build but I'm going to post progress anyway. My wife complains every time she notices the orange plane too. Bah! Anyway, I quite enjoy the kit and the paint scheme and I'm pretty happy with how it's turned out. I just need to slap a couple parts onto it and it will be done.

[UKguyInUSA]

She looks really pretty, colorful and flowery...you're not a Hippie by chance, are you?

[EagleOnyx]

haha, no I'm not a hippie I'm just a fan of Japanese style artwork and stuff.

Here it is, 96% complete. I really need to start my models by finishing the stores, tanks and landing gear FIRST rather than last. It's such a bummer when you're almost done and then realize you haven't finished any of the weapons or landing gear. I'll stick it on later says the procrastinator

[UKguyInUSA]

Really groovy baby, yeahhhhhhhh.....my mojo's rising.

[Brasko]

Very nice, those decals seem a pain no? Perhaps slice a few slots into the ones going over big bumps, it may help. I look forward to the F14 and Su-47.

[EagleOnyx]

I have had to make some slices in the decals to make them conform better. They are time consuming but they work quite well. The problem with the white decals is if you double them over each other at all you get a visible color difference. The color is much a more solid white where two white decals overlap and it can look weird.