1/72 Hasegawa H8K2 Type 2 "Emily" Flying Boat

Gallery Article by Ted Bunn on Aug 6 2009

 

This is the Hasegawa kit from one of the earlier releases.  The fit is actually pretty fair considering the age of the kit, but there were some issues at the wing roots. I had to use copious amounts of gap filling superglue and putty for a smooth fit. The glass parts are typically thick but fit fairly well for the most part. I masked off the panel lines using small strips of Tamiya tape. This was the longest procedure of the project. There's a lot of glass on this baby ! :-)

I primarily build ships but I was looking for a diversion to shake things up a bit. I was always impressed by the look and size of these big beasts so I pulled the kit from my stash. I did not want to spend a whole lot of time on it so I built it totally OOB, but super detailers can have a field day rescribing the raised panel lines and adding other features. The pontoon struts and aerial lines were made with stretched sprue from the kit.

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I painted my Emily using Colourcoats "Kawanishi Green" enamels for the topside and "Overall Light Grey" for the underside. Lighter shades of those two base colors lightened with a bit of white to represent subtle fading was sprayed randomly in a highly thinned mixture over the entire model. The fuselage interior was painted "Nakajima Interior Grey-Green". I'm pretty sure this was not the correct color for the inside of this plane, but I liked the look of it. I finished of the subtle weathering with a light application of MiG pigments. Once the prop hubs are painted red, the props Red-Brown, and the Yellow ID markings are painted on it is actually a pretty colorful plane for a basically a monotone green scheme. 

Overall, it was an interesting project and a nice departure from my usual types of builds.

Ted Bunn

Photos and text © by Ted Bunn