I've been hesitant to really post in-progress builds, but figured that this may convince someone to check out this excellent kit. I've been working on this for a little bit and can attest that it meets Flyhawk's usual mark of excellence.
Pros:
- Lovely, crisp detail. The planking is subtle and brillaint.
- Ease of assembly
- Best fit of any 1/700 kit I've built. I was shocked with how easily the hull fit together with little fuss.
- Tons of detail on the styrene alone.
- Easy aftermarket PE
- Deck. Mask. Seriously amazing. It saved me hours of work.
Cons
- Bloody funnel seam line runs on the port/starboard side. It's damn well impossible to eliminate without losing the funnel's hand and foot rail details. Kajika does not provide PE replacements on their basic fret.
- Boat chocks. They're good for plastic, but I like PE replacements.
Added aftermarket:
- Kajika's barrels and PE
- Flyhawk boat chocks and accessories from surplus Nagato PE
- Some styrene improvements.
Construction began with the simple mating of the hull, which was crazy easy. I effectively prepared to paint the wood bits and left the rest on sprue. Overall, this was easy, though I HIGHLY CAUTION builds to leave the blasted torpedo booms off until after you're done weathering the hull. This was a painful but easily mitigated mistake on my part. I was lucky.
Deck painting was done in my usual way:
- Base coat
- Colored pencils
- Filters
- Wash
- Additional filter (first time I did this.)
I think it came out okay and in-scale.
Attachment:
Kaj6.jpg [ 69.92 KiB | Viewed 2462 times ]
I then painted the hull, major superstructure bits (that possessed wood decks) after using Kajika's mask. I had zero overspray and minimal correction requirements.
After some weathering, here's where the ship stands. I'll start building out the midships superstructure/boat deck and work my way out. Getting the funnels seam-free will be the challenging part:
Attachment:
Kaj1.jpg [ 70.18 KiB | Viewed 2462 times ]
Attachment:
Kaj2.jpg [ 66.2 KiB | Viewed 2462 times ]
Attachment:
Kaj3.jpg [ 54.97 KiB | Viewed 2462 times ]
Attachment:
Kaj4.jpg [ 51.61 KiB | Viewed 2462 times ]
Attachment:
Kaj5.jpg [ 72.14 KiB | Viewed 2462 times ]
All for now.