Hi all!

This post serves to clarify some heavy mistake that I have done here online, and will serve to all USS Skipjack (SSN 585) builders for DDD Campaign, or any other excuse!

Steve Keegan (aka WeWillHold) asked me to verify my advice on the painting scheme that I had previously mentioned here... neutral grey + black (early) versus black + hull red (late).

Since I had painted my own Skipjack in that way (Neutral + black) I was convinced that Revell had done the homework properly. During the late 50's some subs used indeed this scheme, but Skipjack didn't!!

All the fotos that I was abble to find in my references and online, show her in her black and red scheme...
But (there's always a but) some ships of the class like Sculpin, Scam and Snook wearing a "similar" scheme:
Sail in neutral grey, hull in black (and my guess that the hull red would be there, but since these where crew members shots taken during cruises, the waterline is not shown!). This is no excuse to my mistake, dough!!!!

This is my "retraction" for my mistake, and I would like to thank Steve for having doubts about my advice!
I hope that all the guys that I mislead, forgive me (one day!!!) but I was also fooled...

Skipper

EDIT: If anyone here can give some input to this question, please help the gang!

And for the record:

Hi Steve!!

I have been searching my books and my images on cd's just to find out that "I WAS WRONG"!!!
I have found some pics of Sculpin, Scam and Snook with the sail painted in Neutral Grey but the hull being black (this were crew shots, so only waterline level) but wasn't able to find any picture that gave me the evidence that I needed!
I also concur that the picture of the commissioning is very dark tone - too dark to be neutral grey...
I finnaly figure it out where I found this wonderfull painting scheme: the Revell instruction leaflet!
Man, I am sorry for any mislead that I might have pointed to you!!
Thank you very much for "openning my eyes" on this issue!

I will also make a Post on Armorama, so that the members that are making a Skipjack, can make it right!

Thank you and sorry for any inconvinience,

Rui (aka Skipper)

Ayay Skipper:

Thanks for the info, this will no doubt be very helpfull for other builders! But to make sure nobody makes any mistakes after having read your post, I painted this skipjack the way it should NOT be painted:
Also, I'd like to take the opportunity to call my entry for DDD finally finished (except for the name tag which never seems to be ready.
:-)
I decided to stick with the airbrushed flag, because the skipjack is an american sub, and this diorama serves as a hommage to those serving beneath the waves onboard this showpiece of power.

Let me know how you guys like the waterworks...


warvos

Bjorn, thats the best water i have seen.tell us how you did it.the wave is incredible,,rgds jim

Yeah! What he said! That is soooo coool!

That water is so realistic---I could have sworn I felt some "spray" coming right out of the computer monitor

Wow, love the bulge coming over the bow, the wake, and the translucent blue green giving the impression of depth----this is beautiful work.

Please-- a "how to" on this

Steve

Bjorn. Simply OUTSTANDING! Now can we change your name to the Water Man??? Congrats on a very fine build!

Garry

Rui my friend, we all make mistakes like that. And We always will. And with all the help that you give here your bound to step on a banana peel every now and then, :-) I do!

Regards,

Garry

Björn Fantastic job. Please tell us how you did the water. I think an article may be in order.

Hi all!!

Just three things:
First: I really should have double checked the painting scheme provided by Revell, but now is too late, and like Björn, I also have a Skipjack in wrong colors. May my error and the recognition of it help other modelers to make an accurate one!!

Second:Björn you have a show stopper there!!!
Congratulations Mate!!! I have seen many naval dios, and I have to say that your water is the most realistic I have ever seen!!! Simple and highly effective - and all came out of a 6€ model
You just won your sub badge!!

Third: An article "How to make water for Naval Big Scale Dio's" is requested!!

Skipper

Thank you Garry - I really felt stupid!!!

And it wasn't a banana peel, but an entire cluster of Banana's :-)

Rui

Eh! You know what they say, in this case fate handed you a cluster of bananas, so make banana splits and serve them to your friends.

Besides, Stephen Ambrose forgot to cite some sources in Wild Blue, I would say you're in good company Skip. As far as I'm concerned, you're still one of the "go to sub guys" on this site.

Hi all!

Thanks for the very nice comments.

I'm not that good of a how-to story teller, so I'll just make a short summary of how I did things:

The basic water shape was created in a few steps, using only wallplaster, water, a round brush and a flat brush, and a lot of wet q-tips to remove plaster from the model.
1- first the basic underground layer, completely flat, or as flat as it gets with halfdry plaster (don't need the running stuff yet)
I used 4 school rulers which I cut to size, taped them together and applied the plasterpaste. Flattened it out.Before you go to the next step make sure the base is hardened.
2- second up were the basic wave shapes, diagonally across the sea you make heaps of still halfdry plaster. with a very wet brush made the edges smoother and made sure the connection with the seabase was smooth.(so it looks like you made sea and waves in one turn.
3- Now's the time to put in your model. I just pushed mine in there, making sure that the bow was just in the middle of the wave. Important now is that you have to use the round brush, very wet, to hollow out the base
right after where the bow enters the wave, as a sub would create a hole in the sea, even below normal sealevel because of the suction effect.( see random pics of subs at a decent cruising speed). Using a lot of water on the brush will make this look more smooth, but will fill the hole with water. use Q-tips or householdpaper to remove the water as you go.
Use your flat wet brush to flatten the wave over the bow of the sub, making it as flat as the plaster lets you on the top of the hull. The important thing here is that when you look at the wave, you should actually see / imagine the bow of the sub pushing the wave outward, creating a bulge over it.
4- create the wake: when the plaster is now almost dry, use the round brush with hard hairs, and dip it in the area where you want to create the wake, just let the tip touch the surface, and do this about 200 times or so... This will flatten out the waves a little bit also, because of the counter effect of the wake against waves. . Remember that a sub wake doesn't widen up all the time, but at a certain point it stays like a steady line. (this is where I went wrong, my wake is to wide at the end. You can redo this dipping at a few different moments, the drier the paste the more effect it will have.
5- use very fluid plaster to smoothen the reste of the waves outside the wake.and maybe also again apply a little bit over the bow of the model.

Painting:
I only used waterpaints for the water.(plakkaatverf in dutch, from Falens).This way you can easily clean off your model when you got a little carried away with the paint. The waterpaint I used is like a paste, which is perfect for also filling in the holes which you get after the plaster dries up and leaves little holes where some air got out.
I painted the whole base in black (pure black, almost no water involved). Then I created the greenish colour (with black, green and a little yellow) and brushed it on he waves, painting from top of the wave downward, which created the effect that the paint blackens up more and more towards the seabase. (all painting was done while the other colours were still wet).
This I let dry until almost completely dry. Then I used the flat brush to drybrush the wake (which until then was completely black)with the greenish colour like the waves, and then with pure white, but with very dry brush...
Leave that to dry, and when everything is dry, repeat the drybrushing with the white, until you get a bright white wake, with dark visible spots in between.
The top of the waves also received a little drybrushing with white, but very lightly. drybrushing over watercolours will make the paint mix a little bit, making the colour difference less visual.
I let all dry completely, and then applied black washes which should look like tinted water. This made the colours blend in more. I applied a generous amount of water on the seabase between the waves, and smeared that out from bottom to top of wave (but only with one brushstroke at the same spot, otherwise you run the risk of removing the already applied layers of paint.
After repeating that every few days (make sure the paint has time to dry), I first applied a layer of varnish by spraycan, and after that applied 4 layers of varnish with a brush, a layer per day, which gives that very shiny wetlook.OOh, I also painted the first few centimeters of the bow with the varnish, creating a wetlook.

Last tip I found when I tried to take pictures: you need a very strong light to be able to show the colourdifferences in the waves, so I just placed my desk light over it, creating a fake sun, and took my pics at such an angle that this was not visible, but you can see the reflection of the light on the waves, which created a nice effect.

I hope my explanation can inspire you to create a lot of waterbased diorama for the sub and other campaigns!!!

I would be honoured if a staffmember could use my text to create a how to, or if I could contribute in any way on the site!!

have fun!
Warvos

Thanks Steve - I knew I couldn't fool you :-)
So BananaSpilts to everyone it is!!!

To Björn (Warvos): I could never tell from the pictures that it was "just" plaster - it really looks like resin!!

Congrats once again mate!!!

Skipper