To celebrate the opening of the Universal Studios Japan theme park in Osaka in March 2001, ANA painted one of their domestic B767-381s into this striking scheme, complete with a big “Woody Woodpecker” image on the nose.  It took off on its first revenue flight in this livery on Feb 21^st, 2001 , from Osaka Itami bound for Oita , then onwards to Tokyo Haneda.

This aircraft, JA8357, previously wore another special scheme before this repainting … the very colorful “Pokemon”, with a picture of Pikachu on the nose.  I had the pleasure of taking pictures of this scheme at Osaka Itami and Tokyo Haneda in this scheme, but unfortunately have not been back to Japan since “Woody Woodpecker” made an appearance.

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All the windows were puttied, and everything sanded smoothly, including the raised panel lines which would have looked out of scale.  The wings were assembled and joined to the fuselage, and gaps received the Tamiya putty treatment.

After all surfaces were prepared properly (ie. Sanded smooth), the wings and tailplanes got several light coats of Model Master Canadian Voodoo Grey, as I did not have BAC707 handy …

Then acrylic white (with a touch of blue) was sprayed over the fuselage, and after drying for a few weeks, I overcoated it with several layers of Future.  After another few weeks of drying (did I mention that I’m a slow builder ? ), I polished it out, made sure that the finish was ok, then applied the decals.  As you can see, I’m a fan of window decals, as I don’t like the see-through look of empty windows.  It’s also easier to get accurate window counts this way, as different operators have different window configurations, depending on how they set up the interior layout (eg. galleys, toilets, etc)

The trick to decaling large areas is to use slightly soapy water to soak the decal, and put some on the model to “float” the decal around.  I don’t worry about the decal adhesive because I always overcoat the model later, and even if you put the decal upside down, you can carefully float it to adjust it properly, before carefully draining the excess water with a tissue.  The thing to avoid is folding the decal onto itself, especially sharp corners (eg. Woody’s beak, in this livery).  Even if you do that, you can still salvage it with copious amounts of soapy water, as long as you are gentle and don’t tear the decal.

After the decal has dried (so it doesn’t move around), I applied Solvaset to it to nail it to the model.  After it’s dried a bit (maybe a day), I wipe it down carefully with distilled water to ensure there are no stains, which will be very apparent on the ultra-white fuselage.  

A few more weeks of drying time (did I mention that I’m a patient builder ? ), then I wiped it down again (unless you live in a wafer fabrication plant, you will get dust on the model …), then coated it with several layers of Future, allowing each to dry before putting the next one on.

I then used wet Tamiya #2000 sandpaper to lightly take down the orange peel, and after that Novus #2 plastic polish applied with an old t-shirt gave it a nice shine.  Tamiya Modeling Wax gave it a finishing touch (and make sure it is the finishing touch … no paint will stick to the model after this step !)

This model is intended for a friend who moves around a bit, so I left off many small details which can be knocked off, like antennae, etc.  Keen Japanese airliner fans will notice that the red Hinomaru is not on the port upper wing (and though you cannot see it, starboard lower surfaces as well) … this will be done at some stage.

I had a lot of pleasure building this model, and took my own sweet time in doing it … altogether it probably took about 25 hours, stretched into about 9 months.  I feel that proper drying time is crucial, otherwise the lower layers curing may crack the upper layers.

After this, I have the sudden urge to do a model of its previous livery, the 1999 Pokemon scheme.  Now where did I put that Tomy kit ?

For more information on the real aircraft, go to http://www.airliners.net and do a “Registration” search for “JA8357”.  This will retrieve photos of the aircraft, including its previous Pokemon ’99 scheme, including one from yours truly.

Eric

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