The Zoukei-Mura kit – presentation
Geoff has done a full in-box review of the Zoukei-Mura F-4J Phantom II 1:48 and you can see that, plus many photos of the box contents. What follows is a short summary.
The kit contains approximately 338 light grey injection moulded parts, 14 clear parts, decals sheet printed by Cartograf, instruction booklet and a printed A3 sheet with decal position scheme. This kit does have some amazing details yet is laid out for relatively simple construction. It’s a shame that Zoukei-Mura hasn’t decided to put inside some other weapons like cluster bombs or rocket launchers. Decals are provided for one subject: F-4J, 155800, VF-96, NG/100, USS Constellation, 1972, CAG (“Showtime 100”).
The kit is designed for easy building and is modular, so allow for other variants to be released in our future.
The build
Cockpit…
As usual on my builds, it all start from the cockpit; this section, which also includes the nose wheel undercarriage bay, is composed of about 15 pieces that depict all details in a precise manner.
Already here we see how this Japanese company wanted to raise the bar on the quality of their kit. After a first sub-assembly phase, I sprayed a black primer as base for painting the tub. So I painted it according to the colour references on the instruction sheet.
Being the cockpit and nose gear compartment is a single piece, the painting and ageing steps are performed simultaneously. I used the black base to give the first effects of ageing by spraying irregularly the colour on the surfaces; I also used the base colour slightly lightened to create lighting effects in areas of greatest use.
At this stage I found the Lifecolor Liquid Pigments very useful as I used them as acrylic filters to create more chromatic variations. Always thanks to these I created accumulation of dirt and grime in the undercarriage bay. To complete the ageing phase I used a sponge dampened with colour to recreate small scratches on the edges of the consoles and on the edges of the undercarriage bay.
To finish off, I painted the various buttons by following the photos taken from various Phantom publications. To recreate the red screens-off effect, I applied unevenly a bright red and then a candy red to give the effect of the glass screen.