Hmmmm... done quite a lot over the past few days but looking back at the previous post it doesn't look like all that much... I suppose thats the downside of dry fitting everything for the photographs...
Anyway... here we go...
The torpedo net proved more of a pain than I thought... I tried all sorts of materials and colours and arrangements... on this version I used some 34 gauge wire to make the net brails rolled around the nets... but they came up far too big in the end even using the thinnest materials I could find at the time.
In the end I used a very fine shoelace and decided to add the net brails later and leave it a little more even and tightly rolled... They are still much thicker than I would have liked... but they were the thinnest laces available at a really specialised cobbler...
The base colour was airbrushed using browns, steel, greys and blacks... there is a lot more variation than the photo suggests... but I still need to add more colour with pastels and so on later on... plus it is still gloss varnished... not had time to matt everything down yet, which is also what the ship looks a lot darker than previous photo's... all vertical faces are gloss at the moment.
Spent a long time assembling and cleaning up the various parts that need to be added at the stage. Used Tamiya's Fine Surface primer for the first time. I usually use Halfords grey primer, but this is much better... a far better finish, less grainy and very fine indeed. I will be using it in the future.
Airbrushing some detail parts...
I had airbrushed the inside of the vents dark red and then needed to mask them to get a nice clean edge starting just inside the vent itself... In the end I used my punch set and made up some plastic discs that fitted inside held in place with Blu-Tak. This proved to be a good idea as I could spend time making sure everything was square and even...
The Tamiya Primer did a great job of priming the brass barrels and dried pretty hard. A coat of Future hardened it further and since then, no paint flaking off (which I have had a problem with in the past).
I have still got a lot to do inside the boat deck and will add figures under near the gun batteries and just generally milling around. I'll do that before I fix the boat decks and funnels in place so I can get them 'inside' the ship.
I weathered the hull sides a little more as it was perhaps a little too subtle before. Again, the photo's don't really do justice to the colour variation along the sides of the jul and I still have to add black and rust streaks with pastel... but I always do that when the ship is matted down as the matt paint has a better 'grip' and you can afford to be pretty subtle with it...
Overall I am making progress, albeit slowly. She is beginning to take shape now... so once I have added the torpedo net booms and crew and all the armament I'll mount it on the seascape to prevent damage and make it easier to hold without giving myself heart attacks every few minutes... I can then get on with building the fore and after bridges as sub assemblies and do the funnel stay rigging. I'm looking forward to the deck houses as they are really intricate and the Lion Roar set provides the deck houses as PE to assemble... good fun!
I cut the masts off the sprue and put them in place to see how everything looks. The lower masts appear strong enough for rigging, but the upper masts are nowhere near strong enough for sprue rigging and there is going to be a lot of it. I'll have to look at alternative upper masts in tube or rod... unless someone knows of a commercially available mast set for Mikasa?
Anyway... a final three photo's... Will get on with the net booms and crew for under the boat deck tomorrow...
The variation in colour was done using Dave Griffith's method of very diluted washes in white, black, blue and burnt umber...
(Apologies for the quality of the photo's... I had to use my son's iPhone 3GS as my iPhone 4s went back to my old employer... amazing how different the cameras are!)
