Custom carriers from OOB's and painted pieces

Ryujo made from a Shinano.  FJO got a saw and drill from the hobby shop and went to town- note the stern has been cut away under the deck:

Amagi (not quite finished, still needs the sides done):

Another angle on the Amagi:

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:

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.

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.

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.

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:

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).