Custom carriers from OOB's and painted pieces

[DMcLaren]

The only decal used on the carrier decks was an HBG Jap meatball decal, and with all else that went on with the carriers (like putting in magnets AFTER they’d been painted on some), even those had to get repainted.  When the holes were drilled for the magnets (slightly over 1/16th of an inch deep to bury the magnet), the exiting plastic looked funny (like bombs hitting), so FJO took a picture:

[Andy6049]

What did your friend use to paint such fine detail (tool and paint-wise)?

[DMcLaren]

The paint is the usual water based stuff you find at the hobby store.  I’m using Testor’s enamel on the planes.  I think “Army Painter” may be one of the brands he’s bought.  We’re both relying a lot on Army Painter’s brushes called Insane Detail, and another called The Psycho.  Both are pretty small, and FJO has a few Insane Detail brushes that have lost some hairs and are VERY thin.  He’s also found some pens at Michael’s with tiny, tiny heads to make the arrestor cables and dots on the carriers and ships. The brand of the pens is Pigma Micron and you might find them in a 3 pack with sizes .005, .08 & .02.  Brushes from Michael’s in sizes 20/0, 10/0, 0000, 000, and 0.

[Johnson73]

Awesome Detail.  Nice Work!

[thetruegriffin]

Love it! Great job guys.  Keep em coming.

[DMcLaren]

I came across an excellent graphic while I was researching planes for Japan that showed the squadron markings for each of the big 6 carriers, which lead me to read about Takeshige Egusa, so I had to do his plane, along with appropriate Vals and Zeroes for each of the 6 major IJN carriers.  Airfix makes an orange Val that I found some photos of, and I wanted to keep at least one piece with the original plastic color on it, and it turned out that the orange Val was just right for one of the carriers.

[DMcLaren]

I bought some Oscars and Vals from HBG because I liked their Stuka G’s so much, and we wanted land based fighters for the Japanese forces in China.  While researching Japanese air units based there, I found a nice camo pattern on an Oscar, so I copied it for the fighter and tactical based in Kiangsu, and when they were done and placed on the board, our eyes bulged.  What great camo for those planes!  The Manchurian Oscars are based on actual planes that were stationed there, but the tacticals were just painted to match.  The black camo is showing signs of wear on the tail that need to be touched up.

[thetruegriffin]

ok, now you’re just showing off.  :-P  Outstanding job!  I have to get some of those brushes because now I’m jealous that someone has that much detail on their pieces and I don’t.  Haha.  Thanks for sharing!

[John Brown]

Awesome work again!

Cheers!

John

[Andy6049]

Well, I have to skip a few meals, but I finally found where I dropped my jaw.  Keep showing off!  :lol:

[thetruegriffin]

i have to keep coming back and looking at those planes.  makes me happy.  Where did you get those brushes?  was it a member here?  or was there I site I could order them from?

[Andy6049]

And what kind and where did FJO find the pens?  Have ya’ll used any washes on the pieces?

[DMcLaren]

Me and FJO went to see Dunkirk last night so I asked about his pens, and to my surprise he said he has replaced them with a 20/0 brush he bought at a craft store here in the states called Micheal’s. The 20/0 brush is even smaller than our Army Painter brushes.  Turns out Army Painter has a nice website, but they don’t ship to Europe.  They may have a European leg like HBG but I haven’t found one.  Good link to the brushes, if you cannot find them at your local hobby store: https://shop.thearmypainter.com/products.php?ProductGroupId=6

Wiki has some awesome pictures of the Japanese navy, which showed that their Fubuki and Akitsuki DD’s has their names on the middle of the hull, so the 20/0 brush got some action on DD hulls.  A quick note on the colors on the Fubuki- the yellow is an homage to the first ed. pieces and the orange is a nod to the current plastic color, both colors having a history with our group, so a few of them are rather “personalized” for our game.  Here’s a picture I took just before the dull coat application:

[DMcLaren]

BTW, we’d like to thank all the previous painted-pieces posters for giving us inspiration to paint our sets!  And thank you thetruegriffon, for liking my planes!  Here’s just a few of the carrier based Vals (the cockpit lines aren’t added yet).

[John Brown]

You guys are doing awesome work.

When I paint some of my Japanese planes, I 'll be coming here for references. :-)

[DMcLaren]

Thank you John, but you’ll find way better references using Google and checking the images your search returns.  For example, the squadron markings picture and carrier schematic mentioned earlier.

[DMcLaren]

FJO’s Yamato and Musashi and the schematic I found using Google that I sent to him for reference:

[John Brown]

@DMcLaren:

Thank you John, but you’ll find way better references using Google and checking the images your search returns.  For example, the squadron markings picture and carrier schematic mentioned earlier.

Oh, I do, but some of those schemes, on the planes, I’ve never seen.

I didn’t know they had black colored planes, which was cool. :-)

[DMcLaren]

When I googled the Japanese Oscars, the KI-43, I found so many cool paint schemes it made me want to buy 10 more just to paint my favorites.  I don’t recall what the history was behind the Val that was the inspiration for the black and grey camo, but it looked neat so I borrowed from it.  Its actually more dark green than black, but I needed a black tactical to go with the black KI-43.  These are the shots I used for a basis on the black pair.

[DMcLaren]

FJO did 5 groups of 4 Fubuki destroyers, and I bought a few extras of the Akitsuki destroyers from HBG (we seem to have lost some Akitsuki’s from the set the came from, and took the few German ones we had and made then Japanese), so we have 5 of those as well.  Here are some Fubuki sets.