¹⁄350

A Break In The Action~A 1/350 Scale Diorama

Crew-mate Devin J. Poore (Devin) sends us a photo portfolio, of a diorama based on the B&W photo shown of the USS Juneau and USS Laffey. The photo shows USS Laffey (DD-459) alongside the USS Portland, transferring survivors of the USS Wasp sinking. In the distance the USS Juneau (CL-52) is visible.

The diorama...

The USS Juneau is the Blue Water Navy (now Yankee Model Works) kit, built mostly out of the box. I scribed all of the hull plating detail. As with my other builds I replaced the white metal masts with brass and/or copper rod stock. I made the 20mm mounts using a combination of Classic Warships parts, detailed with brass wire, styrene rod, and Gold Medal Models photoetch.

The kit was painted using Badger Marine Flex acrylic paints, again using Silly Putty to make the complex mottle shapes on the superstructure, and a lot of tape for the hull patterns. I weathered with oil paints for washes and dry brushing, sealed with Future with Tamiya flattening agent for the final flat sealant coat.

The USS Laffey is a kit bash. There was not a kit available of the Laffey in 1/350th scale at the time -- and if I'm correct there still is not -- so I figured out what parts I needed by using plans and photos. I called Blue Water Navy directly and asked them if they could sell me a kit of the Aaron Ward, but put the bridge, forward deck house and funnels for the USS Farenholt in the box as well. I did more scratch building on this kit, mainly as practice. I removed a lot of piping and door detail and replaced with wire and Gold Medal Models photoetch.

I also did hull plating detail on Laffey, but instead of scribing it I masked off individual plates and shaded them with the airbrush. Effective in person, but time consuming and it just doesn't show up well in photos. For the 20mm mounts and various directors I used L'Arsenal aftermarket parts for the first time. I switched paints here, using the Model Master acrylic marine line. Much more realistic gray hues in this line, I believe.

The water for the diorama is Liquitex acrylic gel medium, painted and shaded with about six different shades of green and blue, brushed on and shot through an airbrush. That was followed with several coats of Future, some of them tinted lightly with green or blue. The figures that drew the ships are the L'Arsenal resin offerings. They offer a lot more realism to ships than photoetch figures in my opinion, and I will use them on every ship I build in the future