Voir et Savoir 56 - J2M2 "Raiden"

Had this box for a while. Let’s crack it open. 

Two planes. Two little sprues. 

A quick dry fit. They go together easily enough. 

Now to fill in the wheel wells. These kits are obviously not meant for wheels up. 

The wells were so thin, I decided to just cut new covers out of sheet styrene. Much easier than trying to cut/sand the kit parts into submission. 

And, there we go. These handy wooden chopstick rests made a nice base. All I have to do is cut out a slot so I can add a micro USB plug. 

A bit of putty and we're off to do some sanding. 

DC motors are all wired up and ready to go. 

After some careful glueing, the motors are now in place. 

And... it works! 

This one works too. Always a good idea to keep checking the functionality. If it breaks along the way, it pays to know when, where and how. 

Now for some cockpit details... including pilots. 

Cockpits painted, pilots comfy in their seats. 

Tiny little canopies masked and ready to go. 

Am I wasting my time doing under-shading? Maybe... we’ll see. 

First coat on... more needed. 

Top side done. Looking better now... 

A bit more creative masking. I almost never use blue tack for masking, so we’ll see how this goes. 

Missed a few spots, so we’ll need a bit of touch up. 

Second round of blue tack masking... will this work? 

I'm not quite sure how I feel about the result... but here we are. 

Now that the painting is done, time to attach them to the bases. 

Now for a panel line wash, some weathering and decals... 

Decals on... I bet you can't tell (from this angle) that I broke a wire inside and had to do open heart surgery, can you? And you never will... 😉 

All that's left is the decal for the base, and we're done!