The Ship Model Forum

Flight deck is fully sliced and diced!

Interestingly, the plastic is soft enough that I was able to flatten the round-down by brute force, so no need to scratchbuild the entire rear end of the flight deck.

I will of course be sanding flush all the raised deck details (arrestor wires, crash barriers and catapult), partly because most of them are in the wrong place due to the alterations. I will have to scratch build replacements or raid my spares box. I wonder if Taiho's arrestor wires will be the right size?

I'm nearly at the stage where I can start gluing things together again, just a bit more cleanup of some hull side details that is easier done while they are not attached to the waterline plate.

Re-construction has begun in earnest. I started with the forward boat area, since this is the only section that was not cut apart longitudinally and the simplest to add the extra height to at the top. Also note in this area I have removed the crane support, as this will need to be split in two and rebuilt higher up the hull.

I have also started putting the shortened deck pieces back together, working from the middle outwards. I have attached the sawed off sections of the upper hull that remain in the same place relative to the flight deck.

The next step is to build the hull sides in the gap going forward, to support the upper section.

So I ended up taking a bit of a break from this project, though I did build other things in the meantime as a breather. However, I have managed a big burst of activity recently, a push that has got the major reassembly of the hull done. Unfortunately, some areas are not as neat as I had hoped and I will need to use quite a fair amount of putty. In any case though, I now have something that resembles an aircraft carrier.

It's getting there. That's a lot of surgery. A vertical Jumboisation of sorts.

Good progress, especially the way you changed the deck.

Okay. I'm accused of insanity with Kurama. This is another level. You're crossed the line into "get bloody well institutionalized" and I love it.

Keep up the good work!

_________________
- Chris

1/700 Saratoga w/Pontos (Needs paint)
1/700 Potato w/Kurama (On hold)
1/700 Murdertorpedoboat Ooi

Thanks guys!

Haha, I suppose this is more ambitious than any of my previous kitbashes. I actually realised I don't own any putty, so there's some in the mail before the next phase can begin.

What's the story with this Kurama?

Two rounds of putting and sanding, and this is looking pretty ship-shape now. I also added the forward AA gun sponsons and rebuilt the area under the bridge on the starboard side. Need to do a bit more scratchbuilfing for some small platforms, then start adding any remaining kit details.

She's coming along very nicely, Vlad.

Thanks Dan!

I'm getting bogged down a bit again. Although I stated upfront I'm not aiming for a superdetail job, I keep finding little things that are different, that I can't ignore. For example, all the HACS directors are of the new Mk.V type and have a totally different shape to the Mk.IV carried by the previous ships (and therefore the kit provided ones). Fortunately, I think I can approximate these by sanding down some spare US Mk.37 directors, but I need to hunt through my photo-etch spares to see if I can make the radars for them. Feels so close and yet so far, might build something else as an interlude again.

Well, I got round to pressing ahead on this project again, here are a few shots immediately prior to painting, showing the additional platforms for the 20mm guns, and the improvised HACS Mk.V directors (that are modified from US Mk.37s).





I do have some in-progress pictures of the painting but... I thought it would spoil the end result. The camouflage is my best attempt to interpret the pattern from pictures and sources, with the deck colours being a little speculative. The colours are AP507A, B5, B6, AP507C and White. The deck is AP507A and B5. These are my own mixes as I use acrylics, they're probably not spot on, but I think look OK in combination.

This has been a huge project and, as I said at the start, some shortcuts were taken on finer details to not drive myself mad. Minimal photo-etch has been improvised for radars and deck fittings. I also omitted any air group, partly through lack of having the correct planes, but busy as this project was and with the messy camouflage, I think the ship stands by itself nicely.

Anyway, the project is over the line and on the shelf now, so here's HMS Indomitable, shown as of April 1942 in the Indian Ocean:

Very nice! The camouflage looks like it was a very complicated task to apply.

Great build, Vlad. All that work paid off, and the camo looks wonderful.

Thank you both!



I actually really enjoy painting this kind of camouflage because it can be freehanded. Only slight challenge is constantly cross-checking the picture for the pattern, but still a lot less tedious than masking.

Nice paint work. And I really like the fact that you used the Aoshima kit as a starting point.

Thank you! That was partly a pragmatic choice, since it's a much simpler kit it was much safer (and cheaper) to kitbash than the Flyhawk Illustrious. The latter would have caused me a lot of extra headache on top of the work I was creating for myself but I do like the Aoshima, it's a little lacking in detail in some areas but otherwise accurate in shape and (from what I could tell before I chopped it up) fits together really well.

I am tempted to do another as HMS Formidable, which would be a much, much simpler conversion. Formidable served in the Indian Ocean alongside Indomitable in this time frame.

Very nice work Vlad!

Awesome.

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-Steve L.

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