P-51D Mustang Concept Note Book Review

By Michael Benolkin

Review

Zoukei-Mura Inc. has certainly raised the bar on the quality of kits produced in 1/32 scale. As part of this strategy, they've published a series of monographs, one for each major subject produced, under the banner of Concept Note. This is number four in the series and covers the North American P-51D Mustang kit released last year by the company.

The title is published in Japanese and English with narrative and captions provided in both languages. The idea behind Concept Note is to provide the modeler with a one-stop reference for how the real subject looks and how the model looks at each stage in the assembly process. What's more, you're not looking at just one modeler's approach to the subject, there are several examples shown with full-color photos of each throughout their assembly process. Each modeler has chosen a different way to portray the aircraft with varying levels of flight readiness or open maintenance going on so you can examine what these options look like and how they will work for your own project.

In parallel with these color images of the models under construction are corresponding images of 1:1 scale Mustangs. The publication team photographed a number of airworthy and fully restored examples in doing their research and the best reference shots are included in this title. The result is a reference that will help both the visual- as well as the narrative-oriented modeler achieve realistic builds without the painful process of searching out meaningful reference photos and data.

Whether you're tackling your own Zoukei-Mura P-51D or are building the Tamiya 1/32 or Tamiya 1/48 P-51D kits, this great reference will help you attain the detail and appearance of the aircraft beyond the simplified painting instructions in each kit.

Definitely recommended!

This title can be purchased from the Volks USA store.

My sincere thanks to Zoukei-Mura Inc. for this review sample!