1/350 Tamiya DKM Tirpitz - First go at ship building!

[Bigmek]

Thanks alot for your comments!

Jim, that's a good idea! Probably would have been easier doing it your way since I wouldnt have had to deal with all the masking and overspray from the airbrush! Anyway, feels great to finally be done and able to move away from the deck!

[Bigmek]

Time for a small update! Been continuing to pain the superstructure and I'm starting to get closer to the end of that step of the build. The next ship I'm going to build will be something nice and grey without fancy camouflage, all this masking and painting is starting to take it's toll on me.

I have also now painted the propellers! I used Alclad pale burnt metal and it was the first time I tried Alclad. I really liked it, alclad gives a very nice metal finnish. I'm looking forward to using them more in the future! Goint to have to figure out how to make them look a bit more used though. They are way to clean right now!

[Channell]

She's looking great! I especially like the deck; it just looks fantastic!

[Bigmek]

Thanks Channell, I'm happy you like it!

I have done some progress since last time. The blast bags have been sculpted with green stuff and I've built one of the masts out of brass tubes och metal rods. The mast was quite tricky and a new experience for me but it turned out pretty strong, there's no way it'll get bent by the rigging!











Next up will be the rest of the masts and hopefully get some paint on those turrets!

//Christian

[Neptune]

Excellent ship so far.
One remark though (and it counts for more builds than yours alone), I've been seeing that tendency to weather or differentiate the lower hull with different colours below the red. In all honesty, that's wrong. On a real looking ship, that part is a single shade when it's red. The only exception being growth, but that's something totally different.
The reason for it being a single shade of colour is that when building and during dry docks, pieces are sand and/or hydroblasted to a sufficient standard and then touched up with paint. However, after that comes a completely black primer and only after that comes the red anti-fouling paint. The black primer gives the completely single shaded lower side of the hull (along with the top anti-fouling coat of course). So in the end there is no sign of the touch-ups or any other repainting left. This is done in nearly all dry-docks, there would be only a few exceptions when the dry dock is only made for a single repair or upgrade on a certain piece of lower hull, even then that different shade would only be visible at the place of repair or upgrade, it wouldn't result in a series of different shades.
That is reality, it may make your ship look more toy-like, but that's what it is in reality (they don't look toys then just by their sheer size).

I do love the overall result of your ship and certainly the shading shows your abilities in airbrushing (and building). The camo looks perfect! Can't give advice on the planking though, I'll leave that to the specialists.

[Bigmek]

Thanks mate!

I certainly see what you mean with the lower hull! I have actually never seen how it looks in real life (tried to find a picture just now but didnt find any good) but I would think that the growth on the hull would produce some color variations that from a distance would look similar to this? Maybe that looks totally different, I dont have a clue, I just borrowed the technique from another fellow modeller whose work i like!

I do however actually prefer this over a single shaded lower hull even if it is wrong. I just think it looks better and as you say, a hull with a single shade might look like a toy if your not careful. I'm not that worried about accuracy in this build, I mostly focus on what I think looks good and on my own enjoyment!

Today was a unusally productive day! We're having some mayor snow chaos over here in Sweden so I've pretty much spent the whole day at home inside drinking coffe and working on Tirpitz. Best day in a while!

Here are some more pics!

I've added alot of the PE in the area around the hangar and mast but there is still alot left to add. Nothing of the superstructure is glued in place yet so please ignore the gaps etc.



I've also finnished adding the PE to the turrets and have painted the first layer of sky grey. I'm not sure if I'm going to follow through with my original plan of painting them red or go for only splinter cammo. Since she's already quite colorful I'm thinking that red turrets may be to much. I will try it though and if it looks wrong then I'll just repaint it.




Her profile is starting to become recognizable now!





Thanks for watching!

//Christian

[NGaged]

Nice work so far.

Also, weathering of the hull red is not necessarily incorrect. While it is true that antifouling is given a fresh new coat after drydocking, what about before?

Take a look. It's the USS Texas in drydock:

Crusty brown growth aside, there is clearly some weathering there.

[Neptune]

Before that, the ship has lots of growth on it (which is what you see on Texas, but I think she's received already some cleaning as well), but that doesn't come close to this effect. It's all weathering on top of the anti-fouling rather than below (what this shading sort of represents) it.
The Texas effect can be made more realistic by dry brushing some brown or dipping around with something very small. The additional paint will also create a sort of texture which is also present with such growth.

If the hull has been a while in the water, there is in fact nothing visible of the anti-fouling red, it's more white(ish) brown and green.

However, it was just a point that I noticed, if you like it more and you're not aiming at total realism then your ship is looking perfect! I admire your skills with an airbrush, I'm probably at around my 20th ship and they still look a whole lot crappier than your first one!

[Christian M.]

Hello Neptune,

sorry but I must disagree with you too here about hull color (means shade of hull red at least), but I know that there is much personal view and opinion inside.

When you take a look in this thread here, you will find many examples about different shades of this color on same ship:

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=44446

Sure, there are some strange and extreme examples where you wonder that ship is still swimming or not yet scrapped shown, but in general salt water attacks the hull color with same result as sunshine (before salt water starts to eat steel up with rust), means the color fades in more or less big areas too.
Simply out of this you have 2 to ? different shades of hull red on same ship, depending how old, which type of color in chemical composition etc., including effect when only parts of area are interim repainted by crew (you know saying "if it moves then salute, if not paint it" ).
Finally, how much weathering or if all, and which of existing painting techniques to use is of course a personal issue ...

[LE BOSCO]

Hello Bigmek

Good job on the mast and the blast bags ,very realistic and also ,a beautiful painting
cheers
nicolas

[Guest]

Nice work so far.

Also, weathering of the hull red is not necessarily incorrect. While it is true that antifouling is given a fresh new coat after drydocking, what about before?

Take a look. It's the USS Texas in drydock:

Crusty brown growth aside, there is clearly some weathering there.

The problem is that poor Texas has spent the past 50 years sitting in the mud, while a commissioned warship is on the move and being maintained regularly. Besides antifouling doesn't "weather" it either acquires growth or wears off, depending on the type of paint used. I'm pretty sure the DKM did not use an ablative paint. As a rule, unless the ship is being modeled in a situation where it would not have received regular maintenance for significant periods of time, the AF should be shown as pristine.

I would be in a position to know, having spent quite some time staring at the undersides of yachts with different types AF paint.

[Guest]

Hello again! Long time no see, unfortunally I've been quite busy with other stuff so I havent been updating as much as I should! However there have been alot of progress on Tirpitz! There is still alot to be done but I start to see the end in the horizon. Please note though that none of the stuff have been glued yet so thats why you can see that some things are tilting and there are a few ugly gaps.

[Stein Gildberg]

Hi!

Think you are doing fine! I did not realize that someone else was building a Tirpitz on "the next page" (mine is to be found under "Completed Models).
The Tamya (I built one sereral years ago) has got its flaws, but that also goes for the Revell kit.

Regarding the everlasting deckcolor discussion: I think everyone can agree that the color changes depending on humidity.
The teak deck in Tirpitz is no exception.
I like your deck by the way - quite realistic for a deck in the summer when the teak is completely dry.

The first picture show two pieces of teak from the Tirpitz (yes!). The small one is freshly cut and untreated, the lower one has had a coat of clear lacquer. Never mind the eagle/swasika: This is decoration only and does absolutely not reflect any attitude of mine!

The following two pictures show a Bismarck-model 1:48 being made by a friend of mine here in Norway (ref Facebook open chapter: http://www.facebook.com/?sk=welcome#!/m ... 809&type=1

The deck of this model is oiled. All teak is original Tirpitz planking. Check it out. This is really a great model!!!
By the way: The deck is complete- that is: Number, width and lenght of planks is correct!! It took 2 years to make the deck only!

[Bigmek]

Thanks Stein! Your Tirpitz is really an inspiration! It definitely is one of my all time favourite models! The craftmanship is excellent!!

Wow Bismarck in 1/48?! Madness! I would love to see some more pics of that but I cant get the facebook-link to work.

I'm sorry i havent updated this thread in such a long time but the build is definitely not dead. I'm actually almost finished after almost a year! Here's a bunch of pics of where I am currently:













Still need to give her a coat of flat varnish, sort out the anchor chains and the arado plus a bunch of smaller fixes but it's definitely close to the finish line now!

//Christian

[boomstick68]

That is very impressive work. First go at a ship eh? Can't tell. What material did you use for rigging?

[Bill Gormley]

That's beautiful work. Is the weathering/streaking on the hull sides airbrushed or oil paints? Also, reading back in the thread a bit, did you solder your mast or get away with glue of some sort? Oh, and your rigging looks awesome.

[LE BOSCO]

hello bigmek

a beautiful work of weathering very pleasant to the eye
cheers
Nicolas

[Bigmek]

Thanks guys! Im happy you like it!

The rigging was done with 0,1mm fishing thread. I colored it with a black sharpie by pushing it to the thread against a hard surface and then pulling the thread through. It was very easy to work with and quite strong. To tighten it you can hold a heated needle under the thread, this will cause it to contract making the rigging tight! It is way to shiny at the moment though but i hope the flat coat will take care of that.

The weathering is done mostly with oil paints and washes. Before I applied that I did also try to break up the even colors by spraying slightly lighter and darker shades witht the airbrush in a pretty random pattern.

The mast is glued together with CA. It worked fine but I suspect you can make it cleaner and stronger by soldering it. I will give it a try on my next project!

[Bigmek]

I finally finished her yesterday! A little more than a year did it take (I build waaay to slow) but it was really fun and I learnt a ton! Though I might go back and fix a few little things in the future that I've noticed now on the pics but it's nothing major so I think I can safely say this one is finished.

There is more pics in this album; http://imgur.com/a/EGKBX#0









Btw, just noticed imageshack is acting up with the old pics, whats the deal with some of them being huge?

[Dan K]

Yours is some very nice work.