The Ship Model Forum

Dirk, the turrets are beautiful.

Thank you sirpaul, Jose and Dan.
Jose, I will try to keep it up. Here is the next update:
These are the turrets airbrushed and aged. The aging looks very strong on the pics in this high magnification. But with the naked eye it looks okay.
The blast bags were painted with white Revell watercolor with a little bit of wood brown. Then I added more white and drybrushed the more prominent parts. This pronounces the 3D structure of the blast bags.

Very nice Dirk ! I was holding out for a new tooled Aoba but..... it would seem that that the new rainbow set way makes up for the kits lack of details. Now Im thinking about getting it! ill have to see your finished ship to help me deiced lol

Thank you redoctober27. But if you wait still I finished Aoba there might be a new tooled Aoba.

I prepared the aft deck house. Following the Kagero plan I added a ventilator and supports for the torpedo cranes. For the supports I used L'Arsenal AC700 26Perforated beams. They are the finest I ever saw. The ventilator grids are from Ocean Spirit H027. Here after airbrushing and adding a NanoDread searchlight. Here only one of the four torpedo cranes is shown.

Nice work Dirk!! Those Nano dread searchlights are worth every penny if you ask me.







Bob Pink.

I agree Nano dreads the only way to go.
I like that perforated gantry work . keep it up

Thanks Bob and Allan !
I agree about the Nano dread searchlights. They are really good and easy to paint.

Here the catapult before final air brushing ... and after the final painting

You are doing a really, really good job. If I may poke a slight finger towards the paint work, its powdered in places, now I know nothing about spray-guns etc etc, but a good old rattle tin does a fantastic job, I feel it would such a shame to do a 1st rate job with the etch, scratch, extras here and there and have a blanket of paint mucking up the overall effect because its powdered and thickly placed.
pic 5,6 and 9 above this remark is what I am talking about.
Please understand I am not ripping this apart but trying to offer a constructive view, and the only reason I have bothered to write is to help. How you build is up to you, that's never in despute, your model your build. I keep thinking after poring all that effort into a build, to be told my radar is upsidedown, is great, I don't mind someone telling me, pointing me in the right direction (I refer to my Russian missile cruiser, finished it, felt quite pleased with it, then got a mail telling me the radar was around the wrong way, so off it come, and now waiting to see it in my gallery).
I have a bit of a weakness for IJN heavy cruisers, all great looking ships, only wish I had the room for the big blokes in 1-350.

Thanks aleccap for your comments. I have to admit that at first it killed all my drive to continue with the build. I needed some time to motivate myself again. You are right and there is always a possibility for further improvement.
But don't forget that this is 1/700 and my pictures show details in very high detail. This reveals imperfections not obvious for the naked eye.
Here my progress:
I exchanged the Hasegawa part for the torpedo tubes by the corresponding part from PIT-ROAD (NE-04). The PIT-ROAD parts are much better. I added some additional PE-parts: Here is the first funnel. I inserted perforated beams (L'Arsenal AC700 26). The fastening of the tubes is simulated with rings cut in halves from the Rainbow set RB7027). In the Rainbow Aoba set there is also a lamellae part for the funnel. I never saw this before. I like it very much, here shown from the top:

Awesome work Dirk!!





Bob Pink.

Agreed, awesome

Looks good DIrk now let see those pieces of the puzzle together!!


Jose

Thanks Bob, Dan and Jose!
Jose, it will take some time till I put together the Aoba puzzle. There is still a lot of work on the hull and I want to paint it separately. And I got now a little bit distracted and started to build a tiny sail ship (a Xebec in 1/1200) see more here:
viewtopic.php?f=59&t=98058

And that will not be all: I watched the movie "Master and Commander" and now I want to build HMS Surprise in full sail + studding sails+stay sails (27 sails in total), also in 1/1200.
It will take some time till I will continue with Aoba.

Mighty fine work Dirk. The 1945 version of the Aobe is one the IJN's best looking cruisers. And your's my friend should represent it perfect.

Thank you, sirpaul .
Unfortunately I cannot show an update.
I am now more interested in sailing ships but I am sure that after a longer break I might start to continue with Aoba.

Dirk sometimes thats what is needed. I do the samething. Start this end up on that ,finish something totally different from what i started. It's the research,You run into something and a little light bulb goes off. Then it's off to the races.
Paul

Dirk wrote:

...I am now more interested in sailing ships....

........and I look forward to seeing your build progress of those here at MW.com as well!



My interests are being drawn to the transitional sail to steam ships....

best of both worlds!

I am planning a 1/700 build of the -in my view --ultimate sail/steam ironclad...

The Minotaur/ Agincourt

as modelled in 1/384 by John Prothero-Thomas

Somehow I missed this, excellent build so far
Waiting for more in progress pictures.

Somehow I missed this, excellent build so far
Waiting for more in progress pictures.

Thank you Atma. I fear that I will not continue. I changed my modeling activities now from 150% to 0%. I had the feeling that on this page the people immediately forget you. You are the only one giving an response.
There was one remark here which completely killed my motivation. But maybe with good results: I changed from modeling and contributing to modelwarships to online dating. This was successful and I found a nice girlfriend. Unfortunately she hates ship models.
... and I have now other things in mind. It might be that after halve a year I increase my modeling activities from 0% to 10%.

Sorry to hear that a couple of comments hurt your motivation. I've been following a few of your builds. Most of the people that leave these comments usually don't know much about the art of modeling. Hopefully you will finish this build. Good luck on your new found dating. It's always good to take a break here and there. I myself had taken some breaks and one of them was for 8 years!
Cheers
Paul