Hasegawa 1/32 Mistubishi J2M Raiden
By Bill Koppos
Hasegawa's brand new big Raiden is a beauty. The cockpit is fairly well detailed with the addition of a seat support bungee cord. For the base interior color, White Ensign Models Mitsubishi interior green was sprayed. I used the kit decals on the instrument panel and they work well. I was going to man it with the extremely nice sitting pilot figure provided, but chickened out and used a set of Eduard IJN belts. In a book I have is a page with several pictures of pilots with good luck talismans in the form of little dolls, probably sent from home. I made one up out of sprue and paper bits and hung it on the IP. This is a large, visible cockpit interior and superdetailers can have a ball. A nice feature is the bulkhead/bracing inside the fuselage and wings-fit was near perfect, no filler used at all. I used Model Master paints, IJN grey unders and IJN Green uppers, with some lighter shadings sprayed randomly. Hinomaru markings were sprayed on, the tail decals went on OK. A problem with the Raiden is a shortage of color schemes, but especially if you're just getting into 1/32, this kit may be the one to break in on.
© Bill Koppos
This article was published on Monday, January 09 2012; Last modified on Saturday, January 14 2017