1/350 IJN Musashi (Tamiya)
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by Bill Fu |
1/350 IJN Musashi (Tamiya)
This build was intended to be fast. Last summer I got this kit as a gift. This Musashi kit (TAMIYA, Item No. 78031) is said to be over 30 years old with only extremely limited upgrades in recent years, the details, therefore, limited too. In light of this, I decided to build it economically in terms of both time and cost. Initially, I did not purchase detail-up sets as they are costly; instead, I decided on a four-sheets basic Yamato PE from a small local producer and several general upgrade parts for IJN. But as the building continues, I began to feel the weight of "sunk costs" and I realized, even with basic upgrade parts, it was not realistic to finish a ship this big in a short time. Now that I had already spent much time and energy, I decided to make this build as detailed as possible. Since the project was already underway, taking the finished parts apart was not ideal, I began to purchase individual plastic, resin and PE detail-up parts from various brands, including Veteran, Flyhawk, Rainbow, Five-star, TAMIYA, etc. These individual parts were mostly more delicate than their counterparts in detail-up sets, not to mention that they provide parts the latter do not. Finally after nine months intermittent hard labor, my Musashi was finished (the COVID-19 lockdown sped up the process).I did a simple overall design. Yamato Class's deck were open, wide, and empty, to ensure stability during firing, but I find this not so pleasing to a viewer. So I added some items on deck, such as boxes, shells, boats, figures, bikes, and even hanging clothes. This, to some degree, made the scene fuller and more vivid.
I did not refer to many historical documents, so details on the build are probably not loyal to history. Anyway I just wanted it to be nice-looking.
