Hello Mates,

yesterday evening I dismantled the finished kit again in ist single components and gave it a first coat of Gunze SC03 MAIZURU Hull Color. It was my first time I used Gunze and I can say the paint flows very smoothly with the airbrush and covers the surfaces trustable. It dried quickly. The only negative I can Report is the comparable strong smell if you are used to tackle with Vallejos usually. But As I have an Mr. Hobby Air Filter Station for Airbrush works it is ok.

Here are the results of the paint division:


I will continue now with the hull red and the Linoleum colors. Then I will decide how to waterline the ship. More pictures soon...

great to see some paint going down Thomas

More paint is coming Russel. I did the Linoleum floor and the hull red color. Now everything is looking this way:







Slowly it is coming out nicely. Not sure now how to continue. Would you guys use a wash at the deck´s surfaces here or would it be too much at this scale?

Need to think now how to waterline the ship now... *insane laughter*

Hallo Thomas!

Excellent progress, your paint job looks absolutely crisp and spot on!!

As for a deck wash, I think it would be an either - or. You could give the deck a wash, but in my opinion that would require some weathering for the entire boat. Or you leave it as crisp as to is...

You frighten my with this chainsaw-considerations... I would not do it. But that's just me, and only for one reason - I would be afraid...

Great job so far!

Cheers,
Jan

Thomas,

Great work. Did you paint the brass strip or is that PE?

AS Jan said, if you wash the deck you will need to weather the rest of the ship. If your wanting to put it in a water based dio I would recommend washing the deck and weathering the ship.

Great build of an interesting subject.

Dave

Very crisp Thomas! Fine job!! As for the weathering...your call. I am on the fence...I love weathering, and, I love clean! Sorry, no help there at all!

Thanks for your comments guys!

@David: The brass strips at the linoelum Floor were masked with Tamiya masking tape and painted with Gunze Mr. Metal Color 219 BRASS. This Color have a very good opacity and also could be polished for shine too but here the surfaces were much to small to polish them.

Despite the considerably doubts here I executed Operation Chainsaw and did cut the hull in two a few millimeters below the waterline mark as I will need some height because of the build up of some texture later with acrylic gel. So far no victims at the ship, and the captain is happy with the result:

Thomas,

Your a braver man than me and I congratulate you on a successful surgery. She looks good. Can wait to see how you develop your sea.

Dave

More power to you...nothing ventured, nothing gained! Looks like the cut went well! Bring on the base!

ok gentlemen, the base is already ordered and can be picked up at the Carpenters shop next wednesday.

In the meantime I finished my build so far with the plastic and photoetched parts. I glued the three superstructures at the ships hull and began to fix the railings - this was by far the most demanding work for me at this Project. I never did railings before so I read in the Internet that it is recommended to glue them just at some spots with CA-glue and then fix everything with the ships Color. I did this way and it worked perfectly. The Gunze Colors also helped here as they are drying very fast and give the railings stability immediately.

Now there are only some small spots to correct some painting issues. I decided not to wear it down as the most pictures of the real ships show them in relative good order exept a single one which is sometimes after war I guess.

These are the results so far:










So far I´m very satisfied for my first surface ship...

Next steps are rigging the ship and paint and add some of the Crew members to give everything more life. This is where I need your help now:

1) As far as I read does the IJN ship crews late in the war wear some kind of Khaki green service uniform instead of a white one. Is that correct?

2) Can anyone help me out with a proper picture where I can see the rigging better as the boxart of PIT-Roads box?

Thanks for your comments and your appreciated help!

Cheers

Thomas

You're a braver man than I for water lining your build so far into the project Thomas. But, the results are great!

Very nice work so far-looking forward to seeing the rigging go on-some how it gives the ships that 'finished' look

She's a beauty Thomas! Nice seeing the railings down! Not sure I am much help with uniforms. As for rigging....another strange area with this ship, however, there is one existing sister ship to the Ukuru...

Sadly the only link with a number of pictures is on the World of Warships forum - http://forum.worldofwarships.com/index.php?/topic/8133-ijn-shigamsa-kojima/

and this...

Wow, brave man!!!

I'm glad this worked out for you - your result looks spot on, so I'd call it a full success!!

Very nice and crisp work overall, great 'first ship'..!!!

Cheers,
Jan

@Jan: Danke für die ermutigenden Worte! Bin auch sehr zufrieden mit meinem ersten Schiff

Sorry for the delay in updates. Rigging was a hard task for me as it is a very fiddly Job and you have to watch out carefully how to touch the whole thing. I tried it first with stretched sprue but was not satisfied because it is somehow difficult for me to measure the needed length for each one.

Then I tried Uschi van der Rosten´s Rigging wire 0,3 mm (which was in this case sold from AK). After some practice, sweat and tears it worked out eventually. Here are the final results of the finished ship:






I´m very satisfied with how it worked out with my first ship. I only will need to buy a very fine scissors for improve the cuttings from the rigging wires.

I also picked up the wooden base for my sea Diorama from the Carpenter too for just 10 EURO. Now I can start creating the sea diorama and paint some sailors too



Cheers

Looks great with the rigging Thomas!

She is a fine looking ship. The rigging really does makes her stand out.

Ahoy Thomas.

Nice work thus far great looking rigging.

Cheers


Sean

Well done Thomas! Rigging just brings this one alive!

Thomas,

Impressive work on the rigging. I have built a few ships and still have not mastered it as ell as you, congrats.

Looking forward to seeing your seascape come to life.

Dave

A very nice work indeed on some unsung heroes from the IJN! I did built mine a long time ago when no after market was available. I did this diorama of IJN Yukikaze an Ukuru together, and I join some pics! Keep it up my friend!

Thomas,

great work on the rigging! You turned this small kit into a real jewel!! She looks outstanding!!

Cheers und Frohe Weihnachten,

Jan

Is this Pit Road? Anyway, I want one.

Thomas, she's beauty.

Thank you a lot for all the nice comments about my Ukuru. It keeps my Spirit high and encourage me for further Projects within this genre

@Jean: Your ship is also a Beauty, I especially like your rigging very much! May I ask you which figures you did used?

@Frederic: Yes ist PitRoad together with the Eduard set for this ship and some small goodies - you can see everything at the beginning of my blog.


Gentlemen I was able to make some more progress: I painted around 20 tiny sailors from two diffeerend Fujimi IJN sailors sets. I was not sure about how to paint them until I found a book again I already owned since some years about Japanese uniforms during WWII. There are some drawings about sailors and officers in a late war, khaki colored uniform. As I also did see this kind of uniforms in real war footage and in some japanese war movies also it must be the correct way to paint them:



and this is how they look already placed at the ship. Although 20 sailors it doesn´t look crowded so maybe I will add some more later:



Parallel to figure painting I also started to create the sea Diorama. I created the displacement waves (correct word?) with bluetac first and added an Aluminium foil as basic layer. Then I added normal wall color and improved some spots with acrylic gel. After everything was completely dry I did primed it with valleyo RAL 7021 primer and sprayed some different cloudy layers in dark gray and blue at the Surface. After this I did drypaint the top Surface with a light gray and put an gloss varnish on top for sealing everything for the next steps. It did looked this way:




After drying time I ripped thin cleenex towels apart and soaked them in watered white glue, colored a tad in light gray (just a bit). It should simulate the waves the boat is generating during ist movement. After finishing the Operation Cleenex it looked like this:


After this was dry I painted different dots and layers of thinned vallejo paints (different grey and blue color tones). This is how it looks now at my workbench:



Next step is to seal everything again with one thick spray of gloss varnish when it is completely dry. Then I can start to place the ship at its place and begin to blend in the acrylic gel.

Thanks for watching!

Cheers

Thomas

Hello Thomas, nice work so far, but may I suggest you shorten the wake at the stern as it is rather too large. My figures come from L'Arsenal range. best regards.

Thomas,

Nice work on your water effects. I have not used this method but am always looking at new ways to make my water scenes more realistic.

Dave