More painted pieces for consideration

Part 4: Starting the ships, adding decals to the tanks, skin tones on the soldiers

Today spent some time adding paint to the sprayed ships, including painting the water jettisons on the subs black (this was very tricky and ended up looking a little sloppy). Advice for painting the jettisons: toothpicks are not small enough! If you do use toothpicks, you’ll have to dab a dot of black for each tiny jettison.

The battleships were a bit easier, and painting the decks, bridge, and smoke stacks were all done in silver. I plan on adding the final grey coat last after the deck and stacks/bridge dry. I experimented with how to add the national emblem, and will probably opt for a white background with a red dot on the bow of the ship. In the future I may do that with the rear end of the ship.

I painted the tranny smoke stacks silver and added a white background for the emblem on the destroyers. All in all, the Japanese navy is coming along nicely.

The armor is pretty much done. I added a white flag to the front side of the armor and will be adding the red dots later. For the aircraft, I’ll be adding a red band around the rear part of the plane. I was debating between sky blue and red and may alternate just for some variety.

The soldiers got some skin! And I just want to say that adding the paint alone brings out the contours of their facial features in an excellent manner on their own. I may add a touch of black to certain areas of the face but that will be a last step. The next step will be panting their uniforms, rifles, and helmets.

After all this is done, I will be spray painting the japanese bombers white, the aircraft carrier black, and then will add the details to those. The Japanese are about 55% done all in all and I’m pleased with the results so far even if they do look a bit amateurish. Stay tuned.

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@AlphaKappa:

That is so helpful!  Thank you for the analysis!

It was my pleasure. A chance to pull out my games and admire them? If I must…  :-D

@AlphaKappa:

It’s too bad Avalon Hill didn’t print the new Anniversary Edition in the same colors as Europe '40 Second Edition.  I really like the lighter shade of those Italian pieces because they’re easier to distinguish from Soviet red-brown.

To be fair to Hasbro/WotC/Avalon Hill, all they promised was a re-print. And to a large degree, that is what the New A&A Anniversary edition was: a straight up re-print of the original go at things. Were there differences between the two prints? Of course there were. Were all of those changes for the better? I don’t think so, no. I especially wish they had kept the US F6F Hellcat fighters but instead we got more P-38 Lightnings. But overall, it was probably as faithful as they could do and a long shot better than either 1) not doing it at all (what a pity that would have been) or 2) just phoning it in and wholesale dumping all of the right pieces from A&A 42 and A&A Europe 40.1 Italy.

Instead, we got the original Anniversary Edition Italian tank, the M14/41. We got the Italian brown Japanese Betty bombers and Type 92 Howitzers (artillery). And they put them into a shade about as close as to the shade of the original Anniversary Edition Italians as they were going to get from two print runs separated by 9 years. And that meant that we got a bunch of Italian brown German ships and fighters. But we got a re-print of a game I didn’t think was ever coming back.

And for that, I don’t mind dark brown Italians. Even if I would have rather gotten the F6Fs and the Maroon UK Country class cruisers, I’m happy with what we did get.

-Midnight_Reaper

@GeneralHandGrenade:

I was just going to fork over my roundels SS. Feel free to send a well equipped, well fed army capable of stemming the onslaught of fascism and imperialism at the dawn of the nuclear age.

Attack !!!

Smitty I sent you a PM

I do sell pieces cheaper than HBG plus I do have the 3 x 6  anniversary map also that I may part with.

Thank you for the positive feedback! I forgot to say that in the previous post, and it’s very important that I do. It’s very encouraging and motivating to get good feedback, and we certainly appreciate it. The above mentioned four Essex class carriers are complete, a long with several other ships of the US Navy, so its time to update the thread. Just ships by FOlewnik in this post. More aircraft are almost done but I haven’t put magnets in them yet (so not really done), so no aircraft pictures this post.

We’ll start with the two “odd men out” of the HBG sculpt Baltimore Class Heavy Cruisers. Why “odd men out”? Because in the below picture we have on the left, the USS Unnamed Baltimore Class Cruiser Wearing Measure 31a, Design 9C, and on the right is the USS Columbus (CA 74), which wasn’t commissioned until June 8, 1945. The cruiser with the long name is wearing a design that was never used, but was taken from a period design found at https://www.wikiwand.com/en/World_War_II_US_Navy_dazzle_camouflage_measures_31,_32_and_33:_cruisers. The USS Columbus is wearing a Measure 12 Modified designed by FOlewnik to match the pieces we’ll be using for the US Atlantic fleet. These will get aircraft added, but at the time of the photographs the decals on the wings of the aircraft were drying.
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Next up are some metal destroyers from GHQ. Below on the left, the very brave USS Johnston (DD-557) painted in MS-3_/6D as it looked when it was “Sunk by Japanese Warships off Samar October 25 1944,” and next to it is USS Van Valkenburgh (DD-656) painted in camouflage Measure 31, Design 9d. All Wartime photos taken from Navsource.org, a great resource for US Navy history buffs.
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Below, the real USS Johnston shortly before her final battle, and the official design sheet:
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A great wartime picture of the USS Van Valkenburgh, which is the same on both sides:
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Now on to these two. From GHQ, USS The Sullivans (DD-537) painted in Measure 1, and the HBG sculpt light cruiser USS Marblehead (CL-12) who always wore Measure 2 throughout the war. If I can get FOlewnik to put the Shamrock on the first stack of The Sullivans when he puts the scout aircraft on the Marblehead, as seen in the below wartime photograph, I’ll come back and edit the post.
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The post previous to this post showed four Essex Class sculpts from HBG getting prepped and started with a base coat. Those are now completed and I had too much fun playing with them and the aircraft (that are complete so far) while I was taking photographs. I’m pretty sure I didn’t make any wooshing sea or aircraft noises or FOlewnik would have laughed at me. I was tempted though, and here’s why:
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Above we have the first of the Long Hull Essex Class, USS Ticonderoga (CV-14) on the left looking as she did after her April 1945 refit from suffering a Kamikaze Attack on January 21, 1945, and USS Bunker Hill (CV-17) on the right. The Bunker Hill is wearing Measure 33, Design 6A, of which Navsource says, “Her port side camouflage pattern was the most intricate design applied to any carrier.” One glance can confirm that!
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The final two Essex Class carriers are the USS Essex (CV-9) herself, and the USS Bennington (CV-20). The Essex is wearing a unique pattern, Measure 32v6, Design 10D, adapted from a destroyer pattern specifically for the long hulled Essex. The Bennington is painted in Measure 32, Design 17A.
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Finally, some group pictures just for fun:
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Thank you for checking out the post! If you liked it, please click the little heart. I’m trying to figure out why our post is only rated with a 2 when it seems it should be a bit higher if the other likes are any indication.

Excellent job. I also love the subs.

Yeah, it was really hard to get them the way I wanted them to look. I am glad I decided to go with painting the symbols because it’s more gratifying then slapping a sticker on the pieces……in my opinion.

@BJCard:

@Swedo:

Thank you, im not happy with the US star, i hate doing stars, they always look crooked. Tobad my russian carriers will probably never see action :(

You could just houserule a Russian carrier starting in the Baltic- hey, it is your house, your rules!

Awesome!

jwo1984 and others,

––This thread shows the SHAPEWAY Capitals, Air, and Naval Bases that were designed by Ebard. Enjoy.

Tall Paul