The Ship Model Forum

Spectacular painting - she looks really, really sharp.

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Martin

"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." John Wayne

Ship Model Gallery

Thanks for all your comments everyone... Really helps me keeping the faith and working at this... pathetic really, but when I have a disaster, which I invariably do from time to time, its nice to see a comment or two to give me the incentive to carry on rather than put it aside. The port side painting was a real pain as I am pretty fussy about paint finish and love airbrushing a very fine surface and I hate handpainting... my paints are not suitable for handbrushing I discovered, thankfully confirmed by someone who knows these things, but they are all I have, so I have to make do. I tried to paint the starboard side by hand and spend hours doing it. It looked fine from a couple of feet away, but close up it looked awful. Brush marks, glossy surfaces here and there and not a particularly even finish. The paint dries too quickly and if you paint over a bit just painted it just lifts and there is no 'flow'. In the end I decided to just take some thinners and a brush to it and wiped it all off! Drastic maybe, but I would never be happy with it. I spent the afternoon making masks and have just finished respraying the basic hull colour. I will let it dry overnight and then start again tomorrow using my masks and my airbrush. At least I will be happy with it then, and, more importantly, it will match the finish of the port side, which looks pretty good apart from the white, which is a bit rough and the line is too thin. I'll fix it though

Here is a picture of it mid way through stripping all the paint... Shame I didnt take one with the camouflage done... although it probably would have looked OK in a photo and I would have looked completely nuts for re-doing it... so maybe its just as well I didnt.


Looking a bit sorry for itself all stripped down again...

Hopefully I will have some sensible to post tomorrow, but I am determined to post every day so I can keep the momentum up, so thanks for looking in

PS. Listening to The Beatles, The White Album as I was doing all this... strangley appropriate for the mood I am in tonight

PPS. Half an hour later, just as I had started painting the white that will eventually form the stripes on the starboard side, my computer, in its infinite wisdom, then decided to play 'Let it Be'... Music is the answer for those moments of doubt...

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Bill Livingston
Cambridge

Ian Drury and the Blockheads now... so I had to get going!

Decided to airbrush the background white and MS3 patches in preparation for the masks that will go over them when I start the B5 and then decided I could risk a couple of the several MS1 patches as the basic hull colour was dry enough to spray onto. Multiple masks over multiple colours next when I spray the B5 and the remaining MS1, so I am certainly going to let the paint cure overnight at least... then the final white patch, which is easier to paint with a mask right at the end I have now decided. Anyway, just to show something AFTER the disaster below



The picture below is a close up of the MS1 which was just awful when I painted it by hand. This is the MS1 paint after the mask has been removed so there is a little bit of overspray to remove, but other than that it is the raw paint. Much better and more even than the disastrous handbrushing I had managed earlier. I am glad I have done it now. This is very close and you can see the roughness of the casting but remember this is a 700 scale resin ship and from any normal viewing distance and at normal size this looks pretty good. I like getting a good basic finish because I weather quite heavily and I like weathering on top of something I feel confident in and it stops me trying to hide painting flaws, of which there would have many had I left it as it was!!!



(Hmmm... Jack Johnson now... bit dull... Think I will put on some late Led Zeppelin and then tidy up my work area!).

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Bill Livingston
Cambridge

Good progress i see clearly too much free time on your hands
Good choice off music ta boot.
Just in the finishing stages of completing a master for the Algerine Class my self helped along with a bit of Thin lizzy followed by a new group called the Smoke Fairies.
When are you joining the Finewaterline team, you are aren't you, nudge nudge wink wink


Roy

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IPMS Fine Waterline special interest group www.finewaterline.com

Smoke Fairies? Havent heard much... bit Jefferson Airplane or Fairport Convention from what I have heard... West Coast type rock... sounded interesting. Is there an album out or just the EP?

Thanks for the comments on my build. Had work in London today, so no modelling... Re-start again tomorrow. Hope to finish the camouflage on the starboard side and then start finishing the superstructure and shelter deck side camo.

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Bill Livingston
Cambridge

Not a bad description

I have three CD's that i picked up when they were the support act for Richard Hawley, deserve to do well in my opinion.

Fast painter by the way Bill mine will take a tad longer

Roy

forgot to add this

http://WWW.smokefairies.com

some free tracks to listen too

They're in Austin Texas this week with a gig in London in May

roy

very nice bill ,a little scratch building here and there realy adds to the depth of the kit

Thanks for your comments guys... Very much appreciate the support through what is turning out to be a bit of a marathon airbrushing the camouflage and correcting it to get as close to the photographs I am working from. Not totally accurate, but parts of it are!
Roy, bought the Smoke fairies EP and the singles today... Quite interesting. May even see if I can get to Camden to see them in May

Have nearly finished the port side of the hull. Just a couple of small patches of MS3 to do on the hull near the shelter deck. Obviously I havent done any camouflage on the funnels or the rear superstructure and shelter decks yet. I also corrected the white line which was a bit too thin in my first attempt. Much better now.



The starboard side is coming along. The shape of the MS1 at the top of the hull just forward of the breakwater was too long and the wrong shape (look at the photo a day or two ago and you can see how wrong I had got it!), so I airbrushed the base colour again and remasked it. Much happier with it now. The lower, more forward shape is pretty close. Just a tiny correction of the edge near the front to get it how I want it. Leave that until tomorrow. I also have too much of a a smooth curve on the white on the hull side below the shelter deck, particularly at the top where I have it dipping down and then up again when it should be flatter and thinner at that point. That will be easier to correct but will do that tomorrow as well. Still quite a lot of the B5 to do yet, so it is looking a little odd. Probably two thirds of the way through so far. Need to correct the alignment of the white just below the bridge superstructure so it lines up properly with the continuation on the hull as well... and then obviously again, all the rear superstructure to do.



Tedious, but doing it slowly and then making corrections once I am sure what is needed seems the only way to do it. I cant see a quick way at all... Anyway, its good fun and whats the point in rushing it anyway... the fun part is the building and painting... no matter how frustrating it can be sometimes.

Thanks again for your comments...

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Bill Livingston
Cambridge

I am enjoying your build- I especially appreciate you sharing your sanding technique. I wish I would have thought of that trick earlier this evening when I was sanding away at my resin parts........!

Thanks!
Timothy

I can only hope mine comes out 1/2 as good (whenever I try to tackle her). Love the camo - very sharp!

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Martin

"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." John Wayne

Ship Model Gallery

Thanks again everyone... the encouragement is needed... this is a pain to do!

I have more or less finished the starboard hull side. Obviously I need to just tidy up a few shapes here and there but I am relatively happy. One or two errors, but probably not noticeable... for instance I would like to correct the shape of the curved white bar at the rear where it curves into the top of the armour belt... I have got it slightly too even... it should be a little wider at the bottom. Unsure about the large MS1 panel. JB has it like I have... which fits with the Profile Morskie profile. An Chu has it closer to the WEM drawings... The only decent photo I have makes it possible for either to be correct. I decided to leave it with the white panel underneath rather than MS1 all the way down to the waterline, which was how I had it originally... Unless someone has a photo which confirms one or the other?

Anyway. Still have all the decks, deck fittings and the rear superstructure to paint... Plus a couple of little MS3 patches on the port side which I had forgotten to do the other day. I'll then protect all this paint under a couple of coats of airbrushed Future. Until then, I cant mount it on its base and start any assembly...

Here is the almost completed starboard side... Needs tidying up and then boot topping painted in.



Then again, three quarters on, from just off the starboard bow



...(near the Klingons... if anyone understands the bizarre reference...*






* the clue is that you will need to know the words to one of the most annoying songs ever to grace the UK charts...! )

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Bill Livingston
Cambridge

Hi,

Finished the hull camouflage and am now starting on the camouflage on the shelter deck and hangar areas as well as lining up the hull to the main superstructure camo. Seems to be going well. I have to change the shape of the 507C on the starboard side of the shelter deck as it is the wrong shape... needs to be much less curvy... almost straight, but I allowed too much 'bend' allowance for the masking tape round the moulded on boat boom (which I should have scraped off, but forgot!).

Anyway, here it is, minus the boot topping. it may look the same as previous photo's but I have changed and adjusted almost every colour patch in order to get things aligned and looking as they should. If you compare these pictures with the ones before you will see quite a few adjustments. It probably doesnt make sense to post all these, but to be honest, if someone else had done this with a complex camouflage I would have found it really helpful before I started this, so hopefully it will help someone else... If only to show how not to do it if you want to stay sane and do it reasonably quickly. Handpainting camouflage in 700 scale makes MUCH more sense than trying to airbrush it all with masks... Ah well... its just that I love using an airbrush because of the light, even coat and smooth finish I get, so I'll have to deal with that extra time and frustration it inevitably brings...

Anyway... Here are the hull sides complete and the superstructure started...


Starboard side


Port side

Any comments, obvious errors, or things in the pattern that I have missed... please let me know before I move on, as its still relatively easy to correct at the moment...

Bill

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Bill Livingston
Cambridge

I love it!
Well done!
Guido

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AKA "Tailor"
VMF'06 - German Gamblers
Veritable Modelling Friends 2006, Germany

Never wear your best trousers when you go out to fight for freedom and truth. - H. IBSEN

http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCk8zhb1sc4Pe3BRLqq3d-SQ

Thanks Guido...

Well, I thought I had finished the hull camouflage, then two books I had ordered arrived and on checking a few photo's I hadnt seen before, realised that the MS1 panel does in fact extend all the way to the boot topping... certainly in May 1942 which is when I have placed this model... Damn... So out came the airbrush and masks and I resprayed it... for the third time!

Anyway, I then started on the main superstructure and shelter decks hangar and so on and got those finished too. Reasonably happy although masking a camouflage as complicated as this is something I do not intend doing for a long time...! Once that was finished I got the turrets out, cleaned them up and started airbrushing them along with the corresponding barbettes. Looks pretty good now although I havent finished the turrets OR barbettes yet... although I have made a start on the funnels finally! Oh... and I ordered some brass barrels from WEM today. They had deleted my customer details as I hadnt bought anything for a while... It turns out last time was around five years ago. Hadnt realised how long I had been away...! Anyway, I'm enjoying it again, and thats all that counts...

This is the longest time I have spent on any model without actually glueing anything together! Still. Once all this is done and I can pray it with a couple of coats of future and then matt varnish to rotect all the paintwork I can make a seascape and then start the assembly... Phew!

Anyway, here is where I am now. Sorry for the slow progress, but getting the camouflage to line up on all surfaces is really hard! (By the way, the white stripe on the hull and A turret does line up... its just the angle I had the ship at when I took the photo and didnt realise until I added them here... Should have re-taken it and moved the camera a little.... )








Bill

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Bill Livingston
Cambridge

Hi Bill,

you did a great yob on Renowns camouflage One of the cleanest paint jobs I have ever seen.
May I missed it reading the text. What did you use for masking the mode - Tamiya tape? When I paint a 1/48 scale Hetzer Panzerjäger with a curved three color camo scheme I used Tamiya tape with a good result. But I have some problems with the change over between the three colors. I used micro mesh (polishing paper) to fix it.

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Cheers,
Christian
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AKA "Painter"
VMF'06 - German Gamblers
Veritable Modelling Friends 2006, Germany

Thanks Christian... and yes... Tamiya tape and various cuticle scissors and scalpel blades... I am NEVER going to do this again!!!

I touched up a few places to get alignment right and will have to polish out a couple of bumps... and the white stripe on the port side is handpainted and looks it, close up. I will try to polish it out too so it looks smooth and uniform.. I also airbrushed over the 507C patch just under the forward anchor and that now shows the brush strokes below... so that will need polishing out as well. Hopefully a couple of thin coats of Future will even things out a little and then a coat of matt varnish should even everything out even more and, hopefully, reduce the contrast a little as well as lightening everything a touch.

I gave up masking the deck around my airbrushing, so will need to mask the vertical surfaces and respray it all lightly, hopefully that should be quite easy. I also need to mask the superstructure and re-spray the steel decks 507A which will be a little harder. Still... nearly done and then I can get on with building the thing. I wish the surfaces of the castings were a little smoother... or at least consistent. I polished the turrets after cleaning them up and they took the paint really well and have a lovely smooth finish. The barbettes on the other hand are as rough as ****. Thats the trouble with airbrushing.. the surface you are spraying onto has to be as clean and as blemish free as possible... Airbrushing means you get to see all the finest detail in PE or really clean casting... but any surface roughness or blemishes look really obvious. I had to order some brass barrels from WEM today as the kit ones look a little rough for airbrushing and the actual things are really smooth and have really sharp and clean angles... so the paint demarcation lines (white under barrels) would look a little messy and be very obvious... So turned brass is a must.

I blame Jim B for this.. He suggested I bought an Optivisor and that was probably the worst thing I could have bought when I am in this mood... You can see EVERYTHING with them...!

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Bill Livingston
Cambridge

Fantastic!!!!!!!!!!!...Looks great!

Dave

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"There is no problem which cannot be solved through suitable application of naval artillery."

This is looking excellent. I've saved your pics as reference for when I start my Renown. First class painting here. Clean and very tidy!

Thanks everyone...

Well, I have finished the camouflage painting apart from the starboard funnels... The turrets and barbettes were very difficult to mask as they have so much cast on detail... Also, the turret sides had one or two little 'dinks' in them from the casting process... nothing major, just under magnification in good light they look pretty obvious... especially airbrushed. The front B turret was completed (see photo from yesterday in the post below) before I decided I wasnt happy with it, stripped it of paint and detail completely and then re-sanded to get a decent finish to the sides... Pretty pleased with it now though, so I am happy I bothered.

There is a lot of overspray on the deck now... Halfway through airbrushing the camouflage I realised that masking the deck was taking up more time than anything else... and then I had to remove any masking and remask for a different section, so decided to not worry about the deck finish, overspray and the re-do the whole thing later. It saved me hours and, had I thought about it properly in the first place, I wouldnt have airbrushed the deck first... waste of time... And there is no point masking the whole deck first after painting as the superstructure and hull is much easier to mask. So, tomorrow, I am going to mask the hull sides, remove all the superstructure and mask whatever is left and re-spray the deck and steel decks. This will be a lot easier than it sounds. Once that is done I will handpaint all the moulded on deck fitting detail.



Finally feels like I am getting somewhere... Three weeks... painting every day, pretty much, and I still havent glued any of the WEM pieces together...! This weekend I will... I have promised myself... All those detail parts, the masts and all that PE to do... Mmmm... Glad I got back into this.

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Bill Livingston
Cambridge