The Ship Model Forum

Completed post here: :wave_1:

http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=208321

[quote="Vlad"]Funny how a week or two turns into a few days when you put your mind to it.[/attachment][/quote]

Built a Graf Spee recently in a month start to finish in full detail. You are right, if you really dont avoid the boring stuff and just get on with it, dont wait for "inspiration" - stuff really gets done.

The ship is looking nice. Cant wait to see the final reveal!

Funny how a week or two turns into a few days when you put your mind to it. I declare this build complete :big_grin: I'll do a completed post separately after I've had time to take some proper overall pictures. Than you all for following and your support!

For now, here's a last mini-update. Unfortunately I didn't have an appropriate photo-etched catapult so I made one from plastic spares (mountains of IJN equipment sets are good for something it seems), but I feel with the dark-light painting and the fact it's buried amidships it looks pretty good in place. I did however rescue an appropriate aircraft crane from the spares box, as well as some lovely 3D printed octuple pom-poms. I used a bit of photo-etch, mostly for the boat cradles but also a few strategically placed ladders.

[attachment=0]Catapult.jpg[/attachment]

[quote="Vlad"]I haven't spent quite as much time as I would have liked working on this. [/quote]
The modelers eternal lament...

She looks good!

Wow.

I'm finally starting to realize why some folks have such high regard for the pre-modernized versions of RN capital ships. :thumbs_up_1:

Bit of a longer break between updates, I haven't spent quite as much time as I would have liked working on this. I also pig-headedly pressed on with a badly misbehaving (close to running out) pot of light grey, so it took multiple coats to get an acceptable appearance, and still not great in places.

I'm including a close-up of the turrets, without the WIP compliation, mainly to share how I do blast bags. The turrets themselves are unmodified apart from scraping off the 20mm positions and drilling the barrels. Personally, I think the turrets in this Tamiya Repulse kit are the best OOB Royal Navy 15" twins you can get, and I'm a big fan of the finely molded on blast bags.

The blast bags are first painted white, then heavily dry-brushed with the same oak colour I use for the decks. Finally, some of the larger folds get a pencil line in them.

[attachment=1]Turrets.jpg[/attachment]

Despite the struggles I did get around to finishing the majority of the painting. I'm leaving this one fairly clean, though there is an almost imperceptible dry-brush of an even lighter grey than the base coat just to make corners and edges stand out a bit. I usually try to avoid ploughing ahead, completing and gluing major assemblies like this, because the ship looks finished and it's hard to motivate to then do all the tedious small parts that remain (boats, searchlights, smaller weapons etc.). I'll try to slog through these quite quickly, should be finished in a week, max two.

[attachment=0]MainPainted.jpg[/attachment]

I use watercolor pencils also for wood deck. It is very easy. I follow up with clear coat. See you have same technique, cool!

[quote="Quincy"]Ah, yes! The fine painting of a wooden deck has become a lost art! Yours looks better than any wood replacement ones that are on the market! :thumbs_up_1: :thumbs_up_1:

Bob Pink :wave_1:[/quote]

Thank you muchly, though I wouldn't go that far. I've used some wood decks in 1/700 and they look fantastic as well as saving quite a bit of time and effort in painting (althugh my method is also faily low effort too in the grand scheme of things). I seriously considered using a wood deck here, but it would have had ugly seams where it's cut to fit a 1941 Repulse superstructure. Can't really kit-bash a wood deck, not neatly anyway.

Ah, yes! The fine painting of a wooden deck has become a lost art! Yours looks better than any wood replacement ones that are on the market! :thumbs_up_1: :thumbs_up_1:



Bob Pink :wave_1:

Damn fine technique, that. Need to try it some time...

So, the rest of the build is fairly straightofrward. "OOB" for lack of a better word, now that all major reconstruction is complete. I'm not planning on doing a super-detail job here, I feel I've spend the effort I wanted on this project where it really needed to be spent and now want to complete it as cleanly and neatly as I can before my inspiration runs out. However, that doesn't mean no more updates. As I said, not doing anything super special but some may find some of my techniques interesting, particularly brush painters.

I always start painting my ships with the deck, and for a wood deck that means getting out my trusty tub of Humbrol 71 for the base coat. I use coloured pencils to make a wood deck effect. First, a fairly even (but not too even) rub with a yellowish ochre colour to bring out the scribed planking. Then more deliberate localised rubs with dark brown and grey; the aim here is not to draw on individual planks, but just to create the overall effect of an itermittent light/dark pattern. As a last touch, since I don't like masking except as an absolute necessity, I use a mechanical pencil to trace the edges of large deck details such as barbettes, breakwaters, superstructure bulkheads and the edges of the wood planked area. This will act as a guide and physical barrier to paint running when I paint these details.

And finally, I use my trusty 00 detail brush (of which I clearly need to buy a new one) to paint all deck details freehand.

I also took the opportunity to paint the boot stripe. This one will be masked to get a straight edge when I paint the hull sides later. Since Repulse and Renown sat quite low in the water after their various 1920s refits, the Tamiya hull is just tall enough that the boot stripe would be showing. So painting it on is necessary despite this being a waterline model.

[attachment=2]Deck1.jpg[/attachment]
[attachment=1]Deck2.jpg[/attachment]
[attachment=0]Deck3.jpg[/attachment]

From looking at the drawings in AOTS Warspite it seems like the bulges were attached to the hull in such a way that the inner, original, hull was not pierced by any new structure in areas the bulges were supposed to protect. So the were 'hung' on the side and supported on the bottom of the ship. I think ( but that is mostly speculation from my side) the designers may have tried to prevent transmission of the shock of the torpedo detonating on the bulge.

[quote="Pieter"]The small plates (which were not that small) were reinforcement structures for the bulges. [/quote]

I thought that's what they might be, but why reinforce a mostly empty structure on the outside? Couldn't they brace it internally?

The small plates (which were not that small) were reinforcement structures for the bulges.
[quote="Vlad" Drilled out the lower row of portholes just above the torpedo bulge and added the small plate details on the bulge itself (again, I'd appreciate if someone helped me understand what these actually are).

[quote="pascalemod"]Looking good. I tend to now paint ALL at once, as airbrush cleaning etc is such a hassle for me. So I have like 3 ships now bunching up in a line.

The amount of changes looks quite reasonable and not to heavy, but will result in a cool unique model. I assume it will be bright almost white bluish grey of 507c?[/quote]

One reason for picking this exact time period is that the conversion from a Repulse kit is marginally more straightforward than e.g. a WWI Renown or a 1920s Repulse. Those would have required a complete bridge rebuild rather than just sanding some plating off the front; and I could leave more of the conning tower deck and structure underneath untouched, back to and including the pom-pom mounts. I doubt this will be my last conversion like this though, I'm obsessed with the class. How well this has gone, in particular the removal of the armoured belts, has put all sorts of ideas in my head...

I brush paint so that makes life easier, but I do rattle can prime because acrylics adhesion isn't good enough for how much I handle my built kits. This is the priming point, with all sub-assemblies secured in place temporarily to self-mask joining surfaces. And she is actually primed already :cool_2:

And yes, 507C is on the menu as Renown spent a stint in the Med at this time. Another reason for picking this fit, I wanted her nice and bright as you say.

Nice work. Keep it going.

Looking good. I tend to now paint ALL at once, as airbrush cleaning etc is such a hassle for me. So I have like 3 ships now bunching up in a line.

The amount of changes looks quite reasonable and not to heavy, but will result in a cool unique model. I assume it will be bright almost white bluish grey of 507c?

I had quite a productive weekend again, nothing like spending a Saturday morning drilling, eh? I completed the hull yesterday, ended up having to fill some portholes at the bow that Tamiya seems to have put in the wrong place. Drilled out the lower row of portholes just above the torpedo bulge and added the small plate details on the bulge itself (again, I'd appreciate if someone helped me understand what these actually are). I noticed while doing this that the torpedo tube hatches, that I had so carefully made sure not to damage when removing the Repulse 6" armoured belt, are in fact removed on Renown in this time period and plated over... so I fixed that too.

I also tried my hand at scribing the deck planking where there was none on the kit and is now visible due to not using Repulse's large hangars and sanding off the catapult. I've never done this before, so I tried to keep it light. Won't know for sure how good it looks until it's painted, but fortunately for me this is the boat storage area so it will be mostly covered up anyway.

Today I finished the scratchbuilding on the central shelter deck and bridge. Main elements are the searchlight towers on the aft funnel, the hangar and the additional control position atop the chart house that I missed in the earlier bridge work. Some of the deckhouses around the funnels are recycled from the kit parts (but not necessarily placed where they would have been) rather than entirely scratch build.

That leaves the major components of the model ready to paint! Since questions about build and paint order crop up very often with regards to ship models, I've included an on-off picture. This shows the full silhouette of the complete conversion work on the ship, and the extent of sub-assembly breakdown I would normally work with and be comfortable painting on a project like this.

[attachment=2]Hull.jpg[/attachment]
[attachment=1]Forward.jpg[/attachment]
[attachment=0]OnOff.jpg[/attachment]

Looking good, Vlad!

Moving on to the other end of the ship, I had quite a productive weekend essentially finishing the aft end of the shelter deck and stern deckhouse. Generally, I made some small compromises to maximise re-use of the existing kit parts. Again, most of the work is removing unnecessary material, such as shortening the aft deckhouse. Though in this case there was a bit of additional scratchbuilding, such as the splinter shields either side of the removed midships 4" mount (with adapted PE braces), small shelter at the base of the main mast and the armoured conning tower of the torpedo control position. Some modifications to the mast itself, including lengthening the legs to meet the deck where the aft deckhouse was shortened, and of course adding the main boom.

I also dug through my spare photo-etch box to dress up an area Tamiya has left severey lacking in surface detail, and drilled portholes.

[attachment=1]Aft1.jpg[/attachment]
[attachment=0]Aft2.jpg[/attachment]