Tamiya 1/72 Mitsubishi A6M2b Zero

[Elve1984]

I started a new project, this time i am going to build Tamiya's 1/72 Mitsubishi A6M2b Zero. After opening the box i was stunned by the amount of detail the kit has, so i will be building it out of the box.

First a little bit of history of the Zero. The Zero was developed at the end of the 1930's for the Imperial Japanese Navy. I wont copy the entire Wikipedia into the build report but for people who are intrested in this planes history here is a link to Wikipedia. The version i will be building took part in the atacks on Pearl Harbor on the 7th of december 1941. The decals for this plane are provided in the box.

The kit's box.


I started by cutting all the cockpit parts from the sprues and clean them up. Then i drilled some holes in the seat to add some extra visual intrest.


After cleaning everything up i glued most of the cockpit parts togheter so i could paint them in one go.


The fuselage halves where also removed from the sprues, cleaned up and the ejectorpin holes where filled with putty.






While the putty was drying i shifted my focus to the engine. I removed all the parts from the sprues and cleaned them up.




The crankcase was painted in a 50/50 mix of "Japanese Navy Grey" and "light Blue". When the paint is dry i will mask off the crankcase and paint the cylinders.


I already removed the wings from the sprues aswell as the interior color is the same as the interior fuselage color. This way i can airbrush everything in one go.

[digger303]

[Elve1984]

This kit is a real joy to build, lots of detail straight from the box and the fit is really amazing. I made some more progress so here are some pics of where i am at right now.

I cleaned up all the interior parts and prepared them to fit all the small interior parts.


All the cockpit parts glued in place.


Everything ready for a primer coat.


This time i used Mr. Surfacer 1500 black as primer coat, as i will be using some lacquer paints later on.


I started the paint job with spraying a a metalic blue color on the interior for this i used a mix of Mr. Hobby H88 "Metalic blue" and Mr Hobby H67 "Light blue"


The rest of the cockpit was painted with AK Real Color 306 "Cockpit Green"


Al the smal details where picked out with brush painting.


Followed with some dry brushing to make all the details pop out.


After completing the painting of the interior i sprayed a coat of glos varnish in preparation for decalling and weathering.

[digger303]

[Elve1984]

I finished the cockpit of my Zero, have to say that i am pretty happy with how everything turned out with only out of the box parts.

After drybrushing i applied the cockpit decals wicht where supplied with the kit, these where for the seatbelts and instruments.


After that all the parts where sprayed with a gloss varnish and a black wash was applied to make the details stand out a bit more.


After cleaning up the wash i applied a flat varnish to tie everything togheter. As a final touch i applied some gloss varnish to the instruments to give them a bit of a glass like appearance


This is what the cockpit looks like after glueing all the parts togheter.










The wheelbays and other interior parts also recieved a black wash.


And the engine got some more color.


Now it is time to glue some parts togheter and start the kit assembly.

[Stokesy44]

Great painting and weathering on all the interior stuff

[KalebB]

Love what you've done with the interior, looks stunning

[digger303]

You've just confirmed what I've heard about the Tamiya 1/72 zero's. They are great kits and your doing a superb job.
The brand that may knock Tamiya off it's pedestal is the 1/72 Arma brand.

[SmilesPerHour]

I have an Airfix zero to build, but the tamiya kit looks a lot better.

[digger303]

[WordenB]

Beautiful work, it does look to be an excellent kit.

[Garion77]

Beautiful work ! How old is this kit ?
if you want inspiration, Plasmo just put on is youtube channel one from Eduard at the same scale.

[Elve1984]

Thanks alot for the compliments everybody!

@digger303 Lucky me that i have some Arma kits in my stash then, havent gotten to building them yet but i definetly will in the near future. Ill try to post a build report of them here.

@Garion77 Scalemates says the kit is from 2012.

I have to say the kit is a real pleasure to build, everything fits perfectly and hardly any filler is needed. Here is where i am at now.

I glued the fuselage and wings togheter.






There was a little seamline at the top and bottem of the fuselage i filled this with some Mr Surfacer 1500, and cleanded it up with some Leveling Thinner.




The head rest and a little part of the fuselage behind the cockpit also needed to be painted in the interior color so i airbrushed this, while i had the paint in the airbrush i used this color aswell to check if i filled the seamline on the fuselage correctly. Now it was time to glue the cockpit into the fuselage, the fit here is excelent again and it just slided in from the underside of the fuselage. A couple of drops of glue and everything was in place.


I glued the wings and fuselage togheter. It starts to get boring but the fit here is excellent aswell. Hardly any filling was needed at the wing roots.






The canopy parts are glued in place aswell, when the glue dried i masked off the canopy and cockpit. To make things a bit easier for myself i used a masking set of Art Scale for this.

[digger303]

Marvellous build, it is a real pleasure to see kits go together without a struggle.....maybe even fun.

[Elve1984]

I managed to get the engine parts finished. After painting them in the base colors a bit earlier i set them as side for a while, but decided now to finish these parts so i can set them asside for final assembly.

I started by drybrushing the cylinders with an Aluminum color.


When that was dry i glued the engine parts togheter and threated them with a black wash.


now that the engine was finished i shifted my attention to the engine nacelles. I airbrushed these with AK Real Colors RC036 "Blue Black". When the paint was dry i weathered them a bit by adding scratches with an Aluminum colored AK Interactive Weathering Pencile.


Next the engine was glued to the engine wall.


Followed by glueing the Engine nacelles inplace.


These parts can be set asside now for final assembly, but first painting the Zero itself.

[digger303]

[Elve1984]

A new update, and its time for some colors!

Starting off with spraying some AK Real Color 306 Cockpit Green over the cockpit frames. So that when you look from at them from the inside they have the right interior cockpit color.


When that was done everything was ready for a primer coat.


I will be using AK Real Color paints for this build, as this is a Lacquer based paint i used Mr Surfacer 1500 Black as a primer.


For the exterior color of my Zero i used AK Real Color 303 Amber grey. After checking references online i found that this would be a good match for the color of a Mitsubishi Zero from 1941. I tried adding some tonal variation to the color by spraying some thinner layers in some places.






After finishing the painting of the exterior i continued with some work on the landing gear by adding some hydrolic lines made of streched sprue.


I masked off the exhaust aswell so i could give them some colors aswell.


Looking forward to hearing what you think of my progress.

[digger303]

[Elve1984]

I havent had a lot of modeling time lately but did manage to make some progress on the Zero. I have been working on painting some details and small parts.

Detail painting started with the exhaustes.


After that i worked on the landinggear, geardoors and arrestor hook.


I painted the wheels with the aid of the masks supplied in the ASK masking set.


The prop and spiner recieved a coat of paint aswell.


After wich i assembled them.


When all the painting was dry i dryfitted everything in preperation for a glosscoat and decalling.

[digger303]

[Elve1984]

Due to holiday's and such it took me a bit longer to post an update, but here are some shots of my latest progress.

After all the paint work was finished i sealed everything with a gloss coat, for this i used Mr Hobby GX100 Super Clear II. When the glosscoat was dry applied the decals, for this i used some Microscale set and sol wich made them comform to the surface verry well.




This is how she looked with all the decals on.


After applying all the decals i sealed them with a second coat of GX100 in preperation for weathering. I started with a panelline wash made of Abteilung 502 "Burnt Umber oil paint thined with Oderless Thinner.




After the panelline wash i added some fuel staines, i made these with a mix of Abteilung 502 "Burnt Umber" and "Black".


When the oil paints where dry i sealed everything with a mat varnish, for this i used Alclad II mat varnish. After letting the varnish dry i added some chipping with AK Interactive pencils.


The last thing i did was adding some exhaust and gun stains, for this i used some Ammo Mig weathering powders.




So far for the update, next up will be the final assembly.

[digger303]

Lovely work. I love that base colour.

[Elve1984]

Thanks Digger

[WordenB]

Looking very, very nice. 1/72 is my normal aircraft scale, I've been building mainly Airfix but looks like I also need to take Tamiya into consideration.

[DRUMS01]

Very nice so far....

[Elve1984]

@WordenB , i havent build a lot of Tamiya kits yet but the ones i did are a real pleasure. Altough i had good fun with Airfix kits aswell specially the newer tools.

@DRUMS01, Thanks a lot!

[Elve1984]

I have been working on the last bits of my Zero build, assembling all the small bits.

I started with glueing the gearbay doors in place.


After that i constructed the wheellegs, wheels and gearbay doors togheter and glued them in place.




Followed by the tail wheel and arrestorhook.


Earlier in the build i had all ready assembled the engine into the cowling so now i only had to glue it in on and place the prop.




After that the droptank was glued in place.


I unmasked the canopy and glued it in place, i have to say i am pretty happy with how it came out from under the mask.


The last thing to do was to glue a antenna wire in place, i made this with some fine EZ-line.


I am pretty happy with this build and the end result of wich i will post some pics later. The kit is a real joy to build, the fit is really great and has some amazing detail out of the box.

[digger303]

[BigWall]

Very nice build! The canopy really did come out quite nicely!

[LudvigN]

Its the best ww2kit ive ever built. Love the very off white color you achieved!

[Elve1984]

Thanks everyone!

[Elve1984]

Here are the pics of the end result of my Zero build. Let me know what you guys think of it.

[Garion77]

An awesome job ! love the weathering ! Paint job also and love the engine cowl !
Great work

[RangerNeil]

That is truly an excellent job!!
Congratulations

[BigWall]

Very nice work! Congratulations!

[digger303]

Beautiful work.

[cor]

A hard scale to make realistic, but this is excellent work.

[Elve1984]

Thank you all!

[Elve1984]

I made a video of the Zero build and uploaded it on my YouTube channel, if your intrested here's the link: