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03/01/25 New Models coming from Zoukei Mura in 1/32 Scale

With the latest blog post on Zoukei Mura’s main website, it appears that sometime in the future (4) new kits are to be released in 1/32 scale.

  1. The Horton Night fighter version. Over 2 years ago Zoukei Mura released their original Horton in the single seater version. Now they are going to follow it up with a 2 seater night fighter version. The Horton as an actual fighter never flew in combat, and I am doubtful that it ever flew at all. The war ending before Germany had a chance to finish the construction and testing. However as an aircraft it was one of the first flying wing designs. The night fighter was a 2 seater thus this kit will have the cockpit arrangement different than the first kit. Odds are this will be out in the 1/2 half of 2025 as there was not that much Zoukei Mura had to do to the kit besides changing the cockpit and adding the night fighter equipment. However I am hoping that it will not be released in the same clear plastic as the single seater. That plastic is very hard to work with.
  2. The Fw-190 A8 which was the main stream version of the Fw-190 A series during the war and had by far the most number of builds as there were so many variants. Zoukei Mura as stated that they will be releasing a A3 version this year to go along with their already released A4. Both of these aircraft had a shorter engine mount (egg) so it would be easier to release an A3. The A8 will need a larger engine cowling as all the Fw-190’s past the A4 had a slightly larger engine, thus a larger longer cowling. There would also be several differences in the fuselage and wings. Looking forward to this kit, however I don’t expect it to be out until mid 2026. Way out.
  3. The Ki-100, by far of the best Japanese fighters of WWII. The Zero always takes the front when Japanese Fighters are mentioned, however the Ki-100 was a much better aircraft. By the middle of WWII, the Zero was outclassed and under powered. The Ki-100 was equal in combat with both the P-51 (as shown in the air work) along with the Corsair and Hellcat. Hopefully this kit will be out in the later half of 2025. Zoukei Mura has been talking about it for over a year now.
  4. The Bf-109 G4, which was not so natural follow on to their Bf-109 G14 released last year. I had hoped that we would see a G6 next as it was by far the most numerous version of the Bf-109. Note that in the artwork, the G4 is shown with the 20mm underwing gondolas, which did not make it to the G14, even though they were shown during the development of the kit. Zoukei Mura is showing the G4 in a tropical paint scheme, but there are plenty of after market decals available since Revell released a Bf-109 G4 last year. Since it’s possible to build a G6 from the G14 kit, I am hoping to get a couple of the G4 kits and swap the wings so I can build up a G6 with the 20mm underwing cannons.

This is the most I have seen from Zoukei Mura in over a year and all of these kits will be well received in the marketplace. Now that the Kotare Bf-109 K4 is coming in the first half of 2025 the G4 from Zoukei Mura will be well received.

I only wish that Zoukei Mura would release the version of the HS-129, RIII B2 with the MK 103 cannon. So far there has not been any more mention of this version and it’s going on 2 years now. I really wish that Zoukei Mura or someone would just release an upgrade kit to their current HS-129 with the MK-103 cannon. The cannon with the current kit is the Mk-101 30mm and it was a totally different gun. Barrel and magazines were totally different.

Written by Paul Caldwell for Arkansas Fine Scale Modeling.

01/27/25 A look at 1/32 Scale Aircraft Engines

In this post, I wanted to share a few images from my different 1/32 WWII aircraft. All of these are German late war airplanes. A Ta-152, Do-335, Fw-190 A8. The first two are Zoukie Mura kits and the last is the Revell kit of the Fw-190 A8/R2. In the gallery below click on any image to open them in a Lightbox.

Working with 1/32 Aircraft models is rewarding in that you get a much better feel for what was going on inside the aircraft. The cockpit details tend to be more involved and most modern 1/32 aircraft kits will have an engine. While it’s interesting to build up the engines, most of that work is hidden once you complete the kit. While many kits will offer individual engine cowling panels, I feel that leaving them open give the aircraft an incomplete look. Unless you are working on a diorama. An example of this is the Zoukie Mura 1/32 Fw-190 A4. Zoukie Mura has created a kit with amazing details throughout especially the engine. (the only thing missing are the ignition wires). However there are 7 individual panels that are used to cover the engine, and I had a lot of trouble getting all of these to line up correctly. I would much prefer the option to have the engine displayed outside the kit on a stand. With the Zoukie Mura 1/32 kits, you cannot do this as the engine is required to install the propeller.

Great Wall Hobby’ P-40 is the only kit I have found in 1/32 that allows you to have the engine displayed along side the aircraft. For the cost of all of these kits, it would not be that much to add the parts to allow this for all models in this scale with this amount of details.

Views of Various Zoukie Mura 1/32 models

(click on any image in the gallery above to view the images in a Lightbox format)

One of the best companies in the model airplane modeling arena is Zoukie Mura. They create very detailed models in 1/32 and 1/48 scale mainly of WWII aircraft, however they also have ventured into more modern aircraft in 1/48 scale.

Their kits excel in fit and finish. Their instructions should be used as an example for any and all other companies. They give you very detailed steps for assembly, and but also share unique details in regards to the airplane being built.

I have picked four image from two of their 1/32 kits, the DO-335A and the FW-190 A4. The first image is of the details of the tail assembly of the FW-190. The next two are of the engine detail of the DO-335A and the last image shows the rear engine and fuel tank on the DO-335.

Zoukie Mura choose to use what they called “clear” plastic on the DO-335. However it’s not clear and is frosted. So you really can’t leave parts non-painted to show the inside. They claim you can sand down the inside of the clear parts to make them totally clear and translucent which was more work than I wanted to do. The clear plastic is also very brittle and hard to glue. Thankfully, Zoukie Mura stopped using this in later kits.

If you are interested in both details and scale but also history of a specific aircraft, consider a Zoukie Mura kit.