What is the best way to paint the Yamato's Deck?

I would go about it this way... Start with black primer. Overcoat the primer with tan or wood... whichever is lighter. Light sand with something like 3200 Micro-mesh through the wood color to almost allow black primer lines to show, but don't shoot for perfection. Use a gray watercolor pencil to finish the job of completing the dark lines. That's the start for making it look natural instead of rigidly perfect. Any further colors you want to blend into the wood, I'd do it with shades of brown watercolor pencils.

Finish it off with something like Acryl clear flat airbrushed on. Others here have another clear flat favorite to overcoat acrylics. I'm recommending acrylic clear coats because enamel or lacquer are likely to make watercolor pencil marks bleed.

So, what I just wrote doesn't involve using a hand brush at all :D

If those raised lines aren't quite defined enough to give you a good raised surface to sand off the wood color, you can skip the whole black primer part & just go with black or gray watercolor pencils to do it all manually.

I did the hull of someone else's Cutty Sark a different way. I painted it with flat tan enamel then rubbed very thinned Tamiya (acrylic) gloss black all over it. I kept rubbing it until the raised surfaces were wood color and the cavities were left with some dark blackness in 'em.

i am sorry, my knowledge on airbrushing and painting is quiet limited...i am not very sure of the instructions you gave me :(

Airbrushing will always produce better results. IMO unless you are VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY good, you will always get some sort of unneveness with a paintbrush. Have you tried using a rattlecan? hope this helps...

What kind of finish did the real deck have? Was it smooth wood or slightly grooved? The deck in the picture you show appears to be grooved and I would think that to get that appearance you would WANT some brush marks unless the plastic is already molded with a grooved appearance.

Try this on some scrap and see how it works. Get a brush with long, wide bristles that hold a good bit of paint and pull the whole length without lifting the brush. Use the darkest color of the deck, and when the paint has dried use the lighter colors to drybrush over the tops of the brush marks.

thanks again for the help and tips, musiccity, the real deck is unpainted cypress wood. On the model, it is slighly raised to simulate the individual planks.

anyone?