This is Tamiya's 1/48 Pacific Brewster Buffalo. I hoped to depict an aircraft from 21st Squadron RAAF based in Sungai Petani, Malaya 1941.

This is an old but relatively simple kit to build. Being an old kit, some flash is evident throughout the parts trees and careful cleanup is needed. General fit is okay but I had some issues with the fuselage and also the canopy. The canopy is provided as one piece and is very thick. I separated the canopy into three pieces using a Crazy Modeller PE saw.

Various paints used were Tamiya / Gunze / MM / Alclad / Vallejo.

The hard edge camouflage was applied using a wet paper mask. The masking template came from a copy of Tamiya's 1/48 scale 3-view drawing provided in the kit. Weathering effects were done post base coat with ultra thin layers of smoke and Gunze weathering pastels. 

Decals went on nicely and settled after application of Mr.Mark Softer. Unfortunately, they reacted badly to an overcoat of Mr. Color Clear. To fix this, I had to sand the decals down and touch up the colours by hand.

The squadron codes are custom and done using wet paper mask stencils.The serial no. W8163 is a decal and courtesy of Thomas Ng (Masterqq). Thanks, Thomas!

This Buffalo (amongst others) will feature in SFTPMS's August 2008 Merdeka Group Build (MGB08).

Photo & text by Jason Koh