I've actually almost finished a ship model! What's next, the Chicago Cubs winning the World Series? Anyway I need help in choosing paint colors for her. It's an older Tamiya 1/700 kit, and the instructions are in Japanese. I'm sure that White Ensign has every color I need, but I really didn't want to pay any more money for paint right now. I've got most all of the Tamiya and Model Master acrylics. Any suggestions on a paint scheme for her? Ive an idea in mind for putting her in a dio recovering her seaplane alongside. I'm easy as far as time frame, so early or late war is fine.

Rodger,

If you're doing pre 1944, she was Yokosuka gray. In 1944 she was painted Kure gray.

IJN naval colors

Later...Gator

Wow, those are really dark. Almost the same color as the plastic of the kit. I guess I'll go with pre-1944. Tamiya deck tan for the decks. What areas of the deck would be the linoleum?

I'm not sure Rodger.

For Dark gray I use MM Gunship grey as to the linoleum.......covered most of the main deck and is sort of a reddish brown color. You can probably get by using the MM German Armor Signalbraun . I don't use much of the Tamiya stiff, so I couldn't tell you where to go with that.

Hi Rodger,

If the Chokai followed normal practice for IJN cruisers most of her deck would be linoleum. On the kits deck if there are rasied lines going across the deck from port to Stbd that indicates the banding used to surcure the linoleum down.

For the correct Tamiya colour they only do it as a spray and not as a jar, but I do believe that XF64 is a close match.

Hope thats of some help.

Ciao
Luciano

Yep, she's got the athwart ship lines like you describe. I was thinking Red Brown myself, glad to get it confirmed. She's going to be a lot more colorful than I thought, with a reddish deck and gray/blue sides.

Thanks for all the help guys. I'll post some pics, if I can borrow my daughter's camera. That is once this ice storm has passed by and I can airbrush again.