These are astounding. Well done.
Thank you, gentlemen. We’ve enjoyed seeing your work as well.
FJO and I are collaborating on the Japanese subs- he’s painting and I’m adding decals. He’s on the forums here now as “folewnik”, so I’ll just call him FO. (no snickering.) The first batch pictured here we’re using as super subs- the “I” class. I couldn’t find Japanese flags small enough to fit on the conning tower, so FO tried painting white squares on some, and I used slices of the white stripes from the l-94 Italian aircraft markings sheet for white squares and added the red dots from the l-94 US roundels sheet to all of them to make the flags. The numbers aren’t where they should be, but we wanted them to stand out on the super subs a little more than the standard subs (which are almost done) and went with the larger numbers on the hull rather than the smaller numbers on the conning tower. These are the mid size numbers from the l-94 white letters and numbers sheet. FO did the deck detail in brown pen and the hull details in black pen from a schematic we found online. 
I found a good set of pictures of a desert Stuka to go with the German Desert Luftwaffe shown earlier in the post, so now that’s done. I couldn’t find a yellow “C” small enough, so I had to use the smallest letters on the l-94 yellow letter and number sheet.
FJO finished the Japanese light carriers off with 4 from HBG. Since he’d already made a Ryujo light carrier, he painted 4 of the 5 HBG Ryujo light carriers- 2 Chitose class and 2 escort carriers (the 5th sculpt of the set was ruined in an attempt at a merchant freighter to carrier conversion. Heck, the Japanese did it successfully so we thought it could be done with plastic). We didn’t have the greatest light so I had to brighten up the pictures a bit, but starting with the top picture, The IJN Chuyo escort carrier, The IJN Chiyoda and IJN Chitose of the Chitose converted seaplane class light carrier, and the IJN Taiyo escort carrier. No deck decals used- these are all hand painted. You might even be able to print the top view (shrunk down of course) and cut it out for a deck decal, if you’re so inclined. You have to post a picture if you do.
Wow…speechless…
Thank you, sjelso. And wow… I just noticed I’ve been blessed with a “customizer” tag! Thanks, guys!
I’ve got to finish cropping pictures of the finished IJN Shinano and IJN Taiho, but in the mean time take a look at FOlewnik’s IJN Hiyo, made from a modified Shinano sculpt. Note the cut away under the flight deck in front and back.
@DMcLaren awesome Job on the carrier!
Thanks, Sarge, I’ll pass that along to FOlewnik. I wanted to find the schematic he used as a guide but Google wasn’t giving it to me. Shame, too, since I feel this is another one that he nailed. I do have the schematics for the Taiyo and Shinano and will post them when I post the pictures.
@DMcLaren I’ll be watching for them.
When FOlewnik was researching the Taiho & Shinano, he noticed that the sculpt is much closer to the Taiho in it’s layout than it is the Shinano. He worked on both pretty much at the same time and they seemed to me to get done pretty quick. Once again our lighting was poor for a lot of the shots, but I tried to lighten them up with photoshop. It helped bring out the detail at the expense of some true color, so thankfully there’s one good shot with good light so you can see the true colors of the IJN Taiho. Most of the schematics showed the ship with a grey deck, but I’m including one with a tan color deck for the detail.
@DMcLaren said in Custom carriers from OOB's and painted pieces:
When FOlewnik was researching the Taiho & Shinano, he noticed that the sculpt is much closer to the Taiho in it’s layout than it is the Shinano.
Interesting observation; I had never noticed this. Another point of comparison to check would be the hulls of the carrier sculpt and of the battleship sculpt. The scale is too small to allow much detail, and the Yamato sculpt has a few other accuracy problems (notably the stern, whose scallopped shape is too pointy), but technically a difference between the carrier’s hull shape (below the flight deck) and the battleship’s hull shape would further prove that the carrier isn’t the Shinano because the Shinano and the two Yamato-class battleships had identical hulls. Shinano was originally intended to be the third unit of the battleship class, but she was converted into a carrier in mid-construction.
@CWO-Marc said in Custom carriers from OOB's and painted pieces:
@DMcLaren said in Custom carriers from OOB's and painted pieces:
When FOlewnik was researching the Taiho & Shinano, he noticed that the sculpt is much closer to the Taiho in it’s layout than it is the Shinano.
Interesting observation; I had never noticed this. Another point of comparison to check would be the hulls of the carrier sculpt and of the battleship sculpt. The scale is too small to allow much detail, and the Yamato sculpt has a few other accuracy problems (notably the stern, whose scallopped shape is too pointy), but technically a difference between the carrier’s hull shape (below the flight deck) and the battleship’s hull shape would further prove that the carrier isn’t the Shinano because the Shinano and the two Yamato-class battleships had identical hulls. Shinano was originally intended to be the third unit of the battleship class, but she was converted into a carrier in mid-construction.
While all of that is true, when Hasbro/WotC/AH print in the manual that it’s supposed to be a Shinano, I’m left to assume that the sculptors fudged it up. Should they be the same? Yes. Are they the same? No. Does it matter? Not really.
-Midnight_Reaper
The IJN Shinano hull required some heavy and tricky cutting away under the front of the flight deck, and a little at the back, to look like the IJN Shinano from the side view. FOlewnik cut those away and added a few other small details to round out the final look. He went with a grey base hull to make the camo silhouette stand out better than what the schematic shows. Once again plagued by bad lighting (all the recent posts were shot at the same time with that bad light) but one good picture shows the true colors.
@Midnight_Reaper said in Custom carriers from OOB's and painted pieces:
While all of that is true, when Hasbro/WotC/AH print in the manual that it’s supposed to be a Shinano, I’m left to assume that the sculptors fudged it up. Should they be the same? Yes. Are they the same? No. Does it matter? Not really.
That’s a good way of looking at it. The A&A board games occupy a different niche than the older genre of tabletop tactical wargaming, which revolves around larger-scale, highly-detailed, and often exquisitely-painted miniatures – the genre which the A&A Miniatures product line falls into, for example. The A&A board game sculpts have a different type of appeal, which is that they provide players, at an affordable cost, with large numbers of a wide variety of WWII military units, at a level of detail and accuracy which is more than reasonable (I’d even say quite good) for their size and price. Just to give two examples, the Sherman and T-34 tanks are clearly recognizable as such, even though they’re small enough to fit on a dime. And the sculpts have proved quite suitable for substantial customization by the folks who enjoy this kind of upgrading work. The pictures of the custom paint jobs which I’ve seen posted on this forum over the years have always amazed me; it’s sometimes hard to believe that a close-up picture of a painted fighter or tank or warship or whatever is a photograph of an object the size of a coin or a golf pencil rather than a photo of a much larger assembled and painted plastic model kit.
Finally got pictures of the Japanese starting subs (previous Japanese sub pics are super subs). We’re using the Kaichu subs from the 1941 set, with extras purchased from HBG. FOlewnik did the paint & I did the decals. I’d be happier if the pictures were a little sharper but you can still see the detail on the piece. Needless to say, the 20/0 and smaller brushes got a workout on the flanks of these pieces. It took a very steady hand to keep the lines straight on the ballast ports- if one was even just a little off it stuck out like the proverbial sore thumb. I made the flags from the white stripes on the Italian roundel decal sheet and the red dots from the US early roundel decal sheet like on the super subs posted earlier (the I series from the Pacific set). The numbers on the conning tower are from the I-94 white numbers & letters decal sheet.
The IJN Unryu by FOlewnik. Mast is a broken sewing needle and conning tower is from the GHQ carrier extras. I tried to get good pictures of the cutaways on the bow and stern- hope you can see the detail. There’s a good side by side with an unpainted Shinano sculpt to help show the modifications.
@DMcLaren Just wow!
I get it now, they’re just trying to make 'em to pretty to sink.
IT WON’T WORK YOU HEAR ME! HaHa!
Awesome stuff. Being able to produce such fine detail with mostly stock pieces, drill, putty, file, a boatload of patience and paint. Wow! I pay homage to a Master.
Curious, some of these things look pretty fragile, cruiser aircraft and such,I was wondering about how you store them? Even with each type having it’s own bin, things happen when rooting for pieces during a game.
We’re still in the process of making storage. FO got hold of an old metal card file cabinet section that’s about 18x36 inches with either 24 or 28 drawers (6 or 7 columns of 4 drawers) that are slightly wider and twice as deep as the piece storage box that comes with the game, and a little over twice as long. He’s also got some foam sheets we’ll eventually cut for them so each piece sits in its own little cut out. The only thing he’s had to worry about are the little planes on the pieces with launch catapults. Two or three weren’t glued in solid enough and have come off. The rest are pretty solid- enough so that you can pick up the piece by the little aircraft sitting on the launch catapult.
@Phelan-Kell - you BET I can’t wait to bring some detailed SBD’s in on these and toss a handfull of dice in the box against them! We had a pretty kick-arse game of “Check Your 6!” with the aircraft last Thanksgiving. I put a few pictures in the “Other Axis & Allies Variants” section.
