The Ship Model Forum

No, I have no clue as to what if anything any of the signal flag patterns mean. I have done enough research on this ship, and to be honest, I couldn't care less if the flags spell out an order for General Tso's Chicken and a pint of Wonton soup!

Wrong nationality. I think you mean an order of churashi to go.

The signal flags are usually used in sets of 3. Most of them are cautions like taking on ammo, fuel,wounded aboard ect.

Dan, I checked with my sources to ensure accuracy, the flags signal out an order for Kobe steak, yakisoba, saki, and ko-cha-kaden iced tea (this stuff was in cans in vending machines when I was in Okinawa, I swear it was grandma's home brewed iced tea in a can!)

Finally some real noticable progress here, very nearly done. I ordered 1/200 railroad figures / artichetectural figures from somewhere in Hong Kong, I ordered 500 for like $7. they come in an assortment of male and female figures, out of the 500, probably 200-250 are usable, but some are really good, with some having a work cap thing on that looks pretty good for an enlisted Japanese sailor's cap, then some are modeled as wat appear to be police or something, but look really good as jap officer uniforms. they are molded in white, but I painted them anyways, what a tedius task that was! I still have more to install, but will only put about 50 on the model in the end, there are about 6 different poses, so i feel that if I put too many figures on there, it will look too repetitive.

I know that it is not accurate to have the flag at the stern flying along with the flag at the mainmast, but since i see no future need for such a large Japanese flag, I decided to add a little more color to the model and throw the flag on the stern jack.

The Kit's float planes are... well... junk... in my opinion. At some point I will probably throw the bi-planes on the stern too, but as I want to compete in a few shows with this ship, I left those off for now, they are just beyond my skills (or more likely patience at this point) to get them up to par, and I did not want them losing many points for me on this build. The larger float planes are a bit more workable, but still not too good. My biggest issue with these is the big chunky cockpit, which would look ok painted in smaller scale, but I think would just not look right at this larg size. My solution was to cover the cockpits with tarps made from tissue paper, which I think came out pretty good.

Looking good Ryan

John

Boat and aircraft tarps are great, as is the staging. Threse are really nice details.

Adding those figurines sure enhances the model and not only that but it shows the true size of the behemoth. She is coming along nicely Ryan, keep up the awesome work!!


Jose

Thanks, I really do like the sense that the figures add to the model, bring it to life a little bit.

My goal with this finished display is to give the ship just that, a sense of daily life aboard ship, not the combat actions, but daily routines. I added a net to the boat davit to eventually show one of the ship's boats being lowered, and the net in place for some sailors to debark onto the small boat. I also hope to show a couple sailors towards the bow sitting on a plank / scaffold suspended over the side doing a little touch-up painting to the side of the hull.

Here is my attempt at the embark / debark net for the ship's boat;

Looking good Ryan.

Were did you get the little guys?

Thanks Senkan.

I got them from an eBay auction the seller is "funky-ghs" . I have no affiliation with them, but I found the price to be very reasonable, and they shipped really fast from Hong Kong to the USA.

Well gents, With the exception of adding the props to the ship once the enamel is dry on them, this beast is finally DONE !!!

I has been a real journey, it has been a fun journey, but I can't say it's been a real fun journey!

I'm looking forward to seeing it live in two weeks.

Just ran across this build----just wonderful 'stick-to-it' character shown, especially doing the deck planking which is great--- you have something that is just great and of much personal value as it is yours alone and shows how you overcame the roadblocks thrown in your way---had a model/replica of my WW2 CG cutter built for me by Bill Waldorf this spring since my 89 yr old fingers don't do the job anymore--I do so appriciate the untold hours of painstaking labor shown on this website by so many of you folks---my best wishes for the other builds you have planned---cheers

sgtryan13 wrote:Thanks Senkan.

I got them from an eBay auction the seller is "funky-ghs" . I have no affiliation with them, but I found the price to be very reasonable, and they shipped really fast from Hong Kong to the USA.

1:200 scale figures are marketed for Z-scale trains and folks who collect 1:200 diecast airliners. So there are a number of German/Asian sources for the figures. Just search "1:200 figures" on E-bay, or find a retailer who specializes in model trains or die-cast passenger planes...

Outstanding! Teflon tape for boat covers, never would have thought of that.
Great work!

Hi where did you get the little people from? What site / company?

Woah, thread necromance!

Anyways, I got the figures off of ebay, don't recall the seller, I just typed 1/200 figures into the ebay search and they popped up. Bout $7.00 shipped for a bag of 500. out of that # about 300 were useless due to their poses, genders, or massively out of scale size.

I've got a pack of 500 of these that I can sell ya for $8 shipped.

She is looking fantastic.....Cheers mark