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For a while I just collected but have recently been modifying and painting. It took me a while to summon up the courage to paint a Neptun or a Navis N but it really enhances an already terrific sense of detail. The trick is to realise that if the level of detail, seen from a normal viewing distance, is greater than the eye can easily disentangle you will have created a very imposing sense of the reality of the ship - like the real thing seen from a distance. So anything you can do to heighten this is worth the trouble. The best value vamping is to be done by getting hold of older Navis ships (available on the 2nd hand market for anything from £10-£30 but often less than £20), either the most primitive, with plastic masts, or the intermediate NM range. These tend to have blank hulls which can be tarted up by adding scuttles and, where appropriate, torpedo nets and booms. I do scuttles by first marking them up in pencil, ensuring the lines are right, and then making holes, not with a drill, but with the skewers you can buy to hold corn on the cob. A little pressure throws up a rim which, from a distance, approximates to rigoles and adds texture. If you overdo it you will have shell holes. Net booms can be made from any bristles or fine wire and the nets themselves I do by twisting 2 or 3 strands of cotton thread round and round, holding them under tension and smearing them with ordinary glue (not superglue). Leave to dry for a few hours and they will hold the weave, be stiff enough to handle and still malleable and slightly sticky. Then I stick them to the hull with superglue. If you use brown or dark grey or black cotton you will not need to paint. The advantages of doing this to older models are that you get a much better ship and, and this applies to painting the superdertailed ones too, you get to know the ships' designs much better than if you just stare at them. This all might seem obvious but I don't suppose I'm the only collector of 1/1250 ships who took a while to get round to this. I'm now doing quite complex camo schemes on Neptuns - which I would never have dared quite recently - and am enjoying the research quite as much as the work itself. I started a year ago with adding detail to a very simple early Navis HMS Colossus and have just finished Neptun Repulse, Berwick and Bluecher (the Hipper class cruiser) in various schemes. Research wil also lead you to correct some of the errors which are to be found in the models, especially the earlier ones. This gives you a really enhanced sense of well being - until you notice what a hash you've made of something or other. Heaps of fun and educational too. If you think that the scale works against you - and the work is undeniably fiddly - don't be put off. If it looks terrible close up - and it often does - it won't when you stand back. I am no natural modeller, having large hands which shake and worsening eyesight. I still manage ok and so can you!
For a while I just collected but have recently been modifying and painting. It took me a while to summon up the courage to paint a Neptun or a Navis N but it really enhances an already terrific sense of detail. The trick is to realise that if the level of detail, seen from a normal viewing distance, is greater than the eye can easily disentangle you will have created a very imposing sense of the reality of the ship - like the real thing seen from a distance. So anything you can do to heighten this is worth the trouble. The best value vamping is to be done by getting hold of older Navis ships (available on the 2nd hand market for anything from £10-£30 but often less than £20), either the most primitive, with plastic masts, or the intermediate NM range. These tend to have blank hulls which can be tarted up by adding scuttles and, where appropriate, torpedo nets and booms. I do scuttles by first marking them up in pencil, ensuring the lines are right, and then making holes, not with a drill, but with the skewers you can buy to hold corn on the cob. A little pressure throws up a rim which, from a distance, approximates to rigoles and adds texture. If you overdo it you will have shell holes. Net booms can be made from any bristles or fine wire and the nets themselves I do by twisting 2 or 3 strands of cotton thread round and round, holding them under tension and smearing them with ordinary glue (not superglue). Leave to dry for a few hours and they will hold the weave, be stiff enough to handle and still malleable and slightly sticky. Then I stick them to the hull with superglue. If you use brown or dark grey or black cotton you will not need to paint. The advantages of doing this to older models are that you get a much better ship and, and this applies to painting the superdertailed ones too, you get to know the ships' designs much better than if you just stare at them. This all might seem obvious but I don't suppose I'm the only collector of 1/1250 ships who took a while to get round to this. I'm now doing quite complex camo schemes on Neptuns - which I would never have dared quite recently - and am enjoying the research quite as much as the work itself. I started a year ago with adding detail to a very simple early Navis HMS Colossus and have just finished Neptun Repulse, Berwick and Bluecher (the Hipper class cruiser) in various schemes. Research wil also lead you to correct some of the errors which are to be found in the models, especially the earlier ones. This gives you a really enhanced sense of well being - until you notice what a hash you've made of something or other. Heaps of fun and educational too. If you think that the scale works against you - and the work is undeniably fiddly - don't be put off. If it looks terrible close up - and it often does - it won't when you stand back. I am no natural modeller, having large hands which shake and worsening eyesight. I still manage ok and so can you!
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