The Ship Model Forum

Congrats to your excellent Carrier! Had never seen such awesome detailwork!

:thumbs_up_1: :thumbs_up_1: :thumbs_up_1:
Dirk

[quote="sgtryan13"]there are a whole host of things I wish I could go back and do differently, but Lincoln is reaping those lessons learned.[/quote]

Never go back. Always move forward and make the next one a little bit better than the last build. Though, for you, that is going to be pretty easy. Each one of these friggin' things you churn out is even better than the last.

Thanks guys, much appreciated. I finally have a carrier in my collection that I am proud of, even if it is too wide for the shelf I had intended to display it on, so now I need to build a special table for her, she lives on a pair of sawhorses in my display room at the moment. Though there are a whole host of things I wish I could go back and do differently, but Lincoln is reaping those lessons learned.

Doug, I am really happy that I was able to salvage that hawkeye, it was killing me seeing all that work sitting in a pile of pieces. I will say that I am really hoping that someone puts out an aftermarket tilly crane for CVNs, I am sick of building them. I am a ship modeler, not a damn construction equipment modeler! :big_grin:

I agree with all the sentiments here. Simply outstanding build Ryan!! Everything you incorporated into this build makes for one heck of a display. I freakin love it! Your tilly crane turned out quite nice as well, and glad you were able to perform successful aircraft maintenance on your E-2 Hawkeye. :thumbs_up_1:

Simply awesome!

This is such an amazing build., so much skill on show, I hope all the hard work pays off at Nationals :thumbs_up_1:

:big_eyes: AMAZING!!... absolutely Amazing!! :worship_1:

Well fellas, I think I can finally say I put this girl to bed (other than maybe trying to remove the warping that occurred to the base, figures, this is the only time a base I have made has ever warped).

The crane went from a JAG modification to pretty much a scratchbuild other than the tires, clear cab, and a few re-purposed detail parts. I am ashamed to say that I spent over 10 hours on that stupid little 1.5" crane. But it looks the part, so I guess it was time well spent.

Here sits the Reagan, 55 aircraft on deck, 15 in the hangar for a nice round 70 total aircraft. She has about 250-300 hand painted figures from l'arsenal and northstar scattered around her flightdeck, island, and catwalks.

You're a special kind of crazy man. I don't know how you have the patience to make an airwing look that authentic.

Well guys, not wanting to come down to the wire for nationals in August, I pulled the Reagan in for a little yard time this weekend to finally try to finish her off.

I VERY CAREFULLY removed all of the aircraft around the island in order to address a seam issue between the deck and island fit that Dan K was kind enough to point out to me as we were swapping critiques of each other's builds at MosquitoCon a couple months ago.

Since I pulled the AC off, I decided that I would give it one more go at repairing the E-2 that I effectively crushed as I was finishing it and I am happy to say that it was a success (I put hours into that damn thing and it was breaking my heart not to have it on deck).

I also finally built the C-2 and the prowlers, so my airwing is now a nice even 70 friggin aircraft! :woo_hoo: . All that is left to do is re-gloss the prowler canopies now that the planes have been flat-coated.

I added about another 100 or so crew to the flight deck and catwalks, so her full compliment is now in place. NO MORE CREW!!!

And my final project, the tilly crane is just about done, but I will save those pics for tomorrow once I paint her, as she is only primed at the moment.

Ryan that is absolutely sweet looking man! Congratulations on the awards you've received on her so far. Sounds like your deck crew forgot to chain down a couple aircraft for the rough seas!! :heh: Glad to hear you came out unscathed. I too received my shipment today that included the Veteran Sea Sparrow launchers. I will be interested in seeing your assessment and mods to them. They look a lot closer to scale than any other offering though. Anyway, great job on the build. I can only envy the amount of work you complete in getting these carriers done. There is a ton of work in one of them alone and I have watched you build several. Again, great job Ryan.

I love your little monster you got there, really superb build :thumbs_up_1:

Small update-

With the arrival of the veteran sea sparrow launchers (which need some alterations that will be done soon due to incorrect size) also saw the arrival of some great missiles included that I decided to use in my elevator scene. I scratchbuilt some missile carts for the sparrows. I painted the other missiles green to simulate a generic smart bomb, but I am not digging the color, so I will try again, or just go with white.

Reagan made her public debut this past weekend at a valleycon, and I am happy to say that she did very well, taking a handful of awards including best in show. I really lucked out in a few regards. This is the first time reagan has left my workshop since I started her. I found out the hard way that the doorway is not wide enough to allow me to carry her through. So there I was the morning of the show, with my rusty wheelbarrow in my workshop, reagan perilously balanced on the top rim of it as I wheeled this 4' long monster out of my house! Then I go to put her in my back seat of my truck, and I kid you not, if I had made the base 1/2" wider, she simply would not have fit through the doorframe. Then I got to the show, and realized that in the jumble of 55 planes on deck, that I forgot to glue 2 of them down. How on earth they did not cause any damage at all as they slid across the flightdeck on the drive is beyond me. I guess the modeling gods were on my side this time!

I still need to finish the prowlers and c-2 and the tilley crane. As much as it pains me to say, the more I look at it, I think my damaged hawkeye is a total loss.

Brilliant. :thumbs_up_1:

No problem Petrol, glad it helps. I will try to get a pic of the northstar and l'arsenal side by side, as well as with some WW2 stuff when I get home.

What I can tell you is that looking at my indianapolis that is on my desk at work wtih l'arsenal figures, I think the northstar ones will look fine as long as you do not pose them next to the 20mm's (my 20's are l'arsenal on indy). Then again, some of teh l'arsenal figures on indy look too big for the GMM photo etch hatches, so who the hell knows! My impression is that while the northstar figures are cooler and more detailed, the l'arsenal ones are more useful on the builds that I have to actually place them on to take a look.

Ryan,

Thanks for the review. I've debating using both for a BB. I'm glad I didn't. How much shorter are the NS figures? I'm afraid to pose them next to a 20mm if they'll look like kids.

Thanks very much guys! Yeah Doug that Hawkeye mishap had me furious! I was attaching the radome, and slipped, basically crushing the whole damn plane between my thumb and forefinger! :censored_2: :mad_1:

I planned to do a review/comparison between the l'arsenal and northstar crew, but here are my observations:

[b]Northstar[/b]
[b]Pros[/b]-are hands-down more detailed and realistic. the details are jaw-dropping. Threre are many awesome and highly realistic poses, many of them are "specialty" poses like the photo-op group, the guys carrying boxes, a couple guys carrying a table???, guys carrying sacks, with mop buckets, etc. there are some general poses, plenty of standing , walking, leaning, peering through binos, as well as some that I can't figure out what the hell they are doing. They are also slightly "rubbery" for lack of a better term, so they are durable and do not snap off limbs easily.

[b]Cons-[/b] Many of the specialty poses limit the places you can position them on your model, especially a carrier deck. I could be mis-remembering, but I do not think there are any poses where a sailor is walking up a set of stairs or climbing a ladder.
***Now the following "con" is specific ONLY to use of these on a CVN*** Plain and simple, these figures seem too small for incorporating into most situations on a carrier's flight deck. They are dwarfed by the blackdog deck tractors, looking like children next to or on them. They also look a little too small next to the aircraft, but not so bad that they can't be positioned convincingly. The general poses are outnumbered by the specialty poses, so if you want a good # of guys just buzzing around the flightdeck, you are going to need at least 2 if not 3 of each of the 3 northstar sets.

[b]l'arsenal[/b]
[b]Pros[/b]- there are many more "general" poses, so you have a wider array of ways you can position them. There are several figures giving some type of hand/arm signals which are very helpful on a carrier's deck. Their size is perfect to go with the blackdog & JAG deck vehicles. Their "sailors at combat post" set has helmets on, which is easier to make a convincing carrier deck worker out of. They have figures climbing ladders and walking up stairs.

[b]Cons-[/b] There are no specialty poses that are so cool in the northstar set. The details are no comparison to the northstar ones (though at this scale, you can't really tell without a macro-lens or a magnifying glass). The resin is much more fragile, so great care has to be taken when handling/removing from the sprue/ painting, or you will lose limbs and heads pretty easily.

[b]You can not place l'arsenal and northstar figures right next to eachother or in the same small scene, the l'arsenal ones will dwarf the northstar, and it will look like crap. [/b]

My ultimate conclusion is that I like the detail and cool factor of the norhtstar figures best, but... for a CVN especially, if I had to choose between northstar or l'arsenal, I would go with l'arsenal due to the size of the figures and the more general way you can place them on your deck. Using both is tricky due to their size differences, so you have to be really careful who you place where. If I were to do this whole thing over again, I would use northstar in my hangar, and l'arsenal on my deck, I think that would be the perfect combo.

Ryan, that is some BAD A$$ work my friend. I like all the extra's you have added to bring life to your Reagan. Your personalized plaque is pretty damn sweet too. I really like that. Sorry to hear about your Hawkeye. That does suck. Especially the last piece!! That's BS! :mad_2: It's crazy how much time can be spent working on such a small aircraft. But, those things are kits in themselves. Your tricked out deck tractor looks so fast it looks ready for a cat shot! :heh: Which figures did you find to be better between the northstar and L'Arsenal? Again, really great work Ryan. :thumbs_up_1:

Brilliant work man.

And a few more deck scenes.