Posts made by DMcLaren

Got some shots of the Zeroes and Vals last night.  Missing 2 fighters, one green one lost and one Oscar yet to be painted, and one Val yet to be painted.  The HBG Oscars have nice landing gear detail on the bottom of the pieces that are highlighted but I didn’t get a picture to post.  The white Fw-190’s are built by Mitsubishi under license from Focke-Wulf. :lol:

And a year and a half later, here is the entire Mitsubishi A6M Zero set with the Fw’s (one missing) on the left and Ki-43 Oscars at right, with cockpit canopies done. Makes a big difference:

The Shoho in progress. Remember this is the cut-down black Akagi sculpt from the comparison picture on page 1 of the thread.  You can’t see it here but there’s an orange mini sub on the hull deck under the aft striped section of flight deck.  At the front, there’s a gun platform between the 2 support posts for the flight deck.  In the middle, the original Akagi’s exhaust spout has been carved down to be a smaller spout with a gun platform next to it.  The sides are in the process of getting the various gun mounts and deck lines added before the portholes are added.  The base flight deck color is down and it’s outline defined to match the schematic found online.  Elevators, arrestor cables and deck lines will be added later.

Battle of Britain Ace Brian Lane’s plane again with the early Mk1. I like this sculpt vs. the flat wing version, but it also has a bad rudder that needs to be filed to its correct shape. I used a rough emery board to get most off then a smooth one to get the gouges out and define the round shape more.

2 more on a print of the historical reference page (same bottom, one has fin flash and one doesn’t), and early Mk1 Spit with black & white bottom (note leading edge of wing) with a later model Spit fashioned after Brian Lane’s plane with the oversized fuselage roundel.

While FJO is busy on his customized Shoho made from a cut down OOB Akagi sculpt (the unpainted black one in the comparison picture shown earlier with Akagi and 2 other cut down sculpts for Zuiho & Amagi) I’ve been working on the UK air force. Three or four years ago we’d bought some decals from HBG so we could separate long range planes from regular for a house rule.  I slapped some paint and decals on 10 Spitfire sculpts (the flat wing sculpts I don’t care for) and those became the long range UK fighters. I’ve re-done them since I got Dom’s decals from Pico, and repainted the green camo (leaving the original plastic color), and added fuselage roundels and fin flashes and squadron markings to others to separate them into distinct aircraft. Some got underside wing roundels, while others were painted as part of a set of historical progression Spitfires from a reference page I found while googling paint schemes. Here’s the flat wing set from a few years ago looking like they’re flying on our glass topped board (who needs plane stands?), and most from the re-done set.  The sculpt isn’t perfect- neither of the 2 OOB versions are. Both have messed up rudders that need to be filed down to the correct shape, so I guess in a way these have been modded too. You can see the difference in rudders in the pics below.  Top picture on the glass table is the older version (all these planes will get squadron letters later).

A few Japanese bombers. Had no idea they were that dusty!

Bombers finally got their cockpit canopies and noses and tails inked and final coat of clear 5/25/2019:

Close up of the last 2 Vals that were done.  HBG sculpts. (No cockpit lines yet- those were added later, shown below.)

The UK navy that FJO knocked out in about 6 weeks back in January and February a few hours each night after work.  Not as detailed as the Japanese, but we didn’t have the cool tiny brushes, pens, or magnifying lenses back then.

Thank you all!  I wanted to find some pictures of the Akitsuki DD’s but I don’t think we took any pictures of them as a group.  You can see 3 of them in this shot in the Japanese home sea zone.

A shot of most of what’s painted so far of the IJN.  The camo fleet pieces are closest to the camera, with others in the Carolines sea zone (scroll right).  Note the unfinished Kongo in the Philippine Sea.  Finished Kongo BB’s are shown later in the post.

2 more sets.

And the Destroyer family photo:

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.

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.

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

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.

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).

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:

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.

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.

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.