¹⁄700

IJN CHOKAI, Battle of Samar

Presentation/diorama...

The water is a clear glass plate from the local glass shop (The glass type that was in many front doors here in Denmark in the old days). I was lucky to see the many types in the store and fund this one to be the best suited to scale 1/700. The blue color comes from a curled trash plastic bag underneath; the curling gives a good 3D effect in the "water". The small bubble waves on the front side of the glass plate sparkles in the sunrays a give it a feeling if real water. The white foam is NOT Cocaine! ... ;-) - it's just potato powder arranged with brush, cloth and fingers! (Can be a little mess and will not do in windy conditions). The background is made of pale blue cardboard. I have placed the cardboard 1 inch under the glass plate to make the horizon more sharp (please see Picture 1). The last picture (Picture 26) is a manipulated Photo of real sea and the model)

I hope this gave you a feeling of my thoughts and working process, and I hope to inspire other fellow modelers to go out and seek a Takao-class cruiser and enjoy the building as much as I did.

Reference...

Books from my own library:



Japanese Naval Warship Photo Album Cruisers from Diamond Sha books.





Model Art no. 26 Takao-class cruisers





SUPER ILLUSTRATION The heavy cruiser TAKAO 1927-1937





Profile Morskie no. 7, Japanese heavy cruiser CHOKAI





Japanese Cruisers of the Pacific War by Lacroix / Wells
Referred to as the "Cruiser bible" in the text above





Tamiya Random Japanese warship details vol. 1





Tamiya Random Japanese warship details vol. 2





Gakken Takao-Class cruisers no.16



Websites:

Nihon Kaigun:
combinedfleet.com

Mr. Dan Kaplan beautiful model of Chokai 1942 on Model warships:
Modelwarships

Mr. Claudio Matteini fantastic model of Maya 1944 on Model warships:
Modelwarships

And a special thanks to the experts on J-aircraft Mr. Ed Low and Dan Kaplan who contributed with photos and drawings and there vast amount of IJN knowledge.
J-aircraft

The building time was 6 weeks.
May, 2008