Good kit to build OOB? no paint, no pe,etc. Recommendations?

As for a ship model, any of the older releases of any submarine would fit your description.

They normally came molded in the right color, and with no water-line to worry about and except for a few details, virtully nothing to paint.

And if you can get your hands on an old Revell U.S.S. Olympia or Great Eastern or an ITC U.S.S. Oregon there again they were molded in the correct colors leaving you very little painting.

Tom T

My Revell Olympia is entirely white as is the Great Eastern.(well off-white) They are both 1980s or later re-releases.

I guess you mean releases from the early 1960s?

You bet.

The Old 60's releases were molded in wite, tan or brown for the decks, etc., according to the item's genre.

Those were the days when the better kit makers tried to help the builder minimize painting if we chose not to.

For instance I have literally two Lindberg Curtiss Jenny's, one and olde 60's release, and then newer one.

The new one you definately gotta paint, but the older one is molded in a color close to the linen fabric they used back then.

So if I awnt to, all I need to do is soften up the kit's molded color, and I am in business.

Tom T

Revell's big Cutty Sark (if you can find one) or the 1/96 Constitution or the Revell/Matchbox 1/72 Flower Class Corvette.  Mine of all of those came in many colors.  The only glaring absence would be the lack of paint below the waterline.  The Tamiya 1/700 carrier Taiho was a waterline model which solves that problem and the flight deck was steel and the planes were molded in green so that might be a good choice.  Many of Heller's sailing ships were molded in many colors.

One very easy painting scheme that improves look of raw styrene greatly is to spray it with clearcoat.  For the Titanic I'd use gloss.  Spray hull and other large parts with a coat of Glosscoat. It takes away most of that translucent look of raw styrene.  For naval vessels Dullcoat would be more appropriate.

I do not recall Olympia in anything other than white. BTW it's been re-released...for $100!!! Matchbox made airplane models for a while in multi-colors, but I'm being tongue-in-cheek here because the results were really frightening. I have a Privateer in my stash- the wings are dark blue, the fuselage is garish turquoise blue and most of the rest is white etc.

Any of the recent Trumpeter kits fit the bill. The lower hull comes molded a reasonable dark red, and the uppers gray. But if you are going to spend that kind of money, a few simple added steps are called for. The Liberty ships would make the grade unpainted, although the first thing I did was lower the waterline quite a bit.

Don't devalue what you can to with spray cans. Like Don mentioned, one coat of something is pretty much necessary or the plastic will really look too basic.

Naval ships obviously can be pretty straight forward. "Haze gray and underway" and figure out how to paint the red parts. A can of rustoleum primer, and a suitable light gray. Two spray cans, a little tape and reasonable results.

If you are a young modeler or mentoring one, this is a good start. Skills grow with practice. Good luck!

what Mr. Bondo said. Just for my own curiosity, why don't you want to paint it?

Thinking of what ship to do for an OOB category for competition next year.