A6M3 Zero Fighter (HAMP)

Applied the decals. Also, I accidentally broke off the antenna and decided to just cut it off completely since I read that sometimes the Japanese pilots took out their radios/antenna to save weight.  

The bottom came out good. I messed up a little with the landing gear, some glue got on my finger and it messed up the paint a pit. In hindsight, I should have just glued the landing gear before I painted.  

Decided not to do too much detail on the figure since he will be in the closed cockpit and hardly ever seen.  

Masked the canopy with Bare Metal Foil, since the Tamiya masking tape was too thick to clearly see the panel lines through. So far the BMF look like it held up good.  

I still have to add some weathering and paint the guns at the nose of the plane.  

I still need to finish the base display stand. 

Masking the canopy with Bare Metal Foil came out good! I put a little too much glue on the sides. Overall I'm happy with the result of the canopy.  

I messed up on applying the correct decal on the rudder for the Tainan version. So I had to use the rudder decals from the Rabaul version.  

Drilled two holes to be able to stick two 1/8in acrylic rods into the model.  

The finished build 

I tried out using oil paint for the weathering for the first time. Definitely need to build up my skill with the oil paints but I don’t think I did a terrible job.  

There is some cracking in the paint on the fuselage. I believe it was the paint not reacting well to the primer I used, and I won't be using that primer again. The primer was Rustoluem matt primer grey and the paint was Tamiya IJN Light Grey Laquer. Also, need to fill the seam line better.  

This base I made out of a picture frame, aluminum foil, and a foam board. I shaped the foil, painted it ocean colors, and lastly painted gloss Mod Podge over it. I got the idea/steps from a YouTube video.