Academy 1/350 Graf Spee WIP-Completed 2/29, many pics

stikpusher

I uses I think a 3:1 ratio of paint to thinner in this case. I accidently put in a couple extra drops. Iused Testor's Acryl Thinner.  But if was the ratio of thinner to paint, wouldnt the paint on the surrounding masking tape area have cracked as well, instead of just the paint on the painted plastic area? Well my next attempt will be at the 5:1 ratio of paint to thinner that I have found works best with Testors Acryl line.

Did you prep the areas good before you painted? Though I think next time you should invest in the WEM Schnellboot Weise. Oh and make sure you stir your paint before you use it by using the Badger motorized paint stirer.

I uses I think a 3:1 ratio of paint to thinner in this case. I accidently put in a couple extra drops. Iused Testor's Acryl Thinner.  But if was the ratio of thinner to paint, wouldnt the paint on the surrounding masking tape area have cracked as well, instead of just the paint on the painted plastic area? Well my next attempt will be at the 5:1 ratio of paint to thinner that I have found works best with Testors Acryl line.

I think with your white paint color you may have used too much thinner. I have some MM Acryl paint colors and have successfully used at least 4 drops of Tamiya Thinner to thin the paint enough without it cracking.  Though I am looking at the very least of getting the Trumpeter Arado's since I have a 1/720 Blucher and a 1/700 Tirpitz and 1/700 MPC Graf Spee.

stikpusher

Yes, a Trumpeter Arado would be nice... but then I have no need for five more as the set comes with six... At best two more if I build Bismark...

Today's painting was going smoothly until... BANG..Major Snag... for some reason, the white paint (MM Acryl Marine Colors Schnellboot Weiss- did I mention that those paints bite???) which I used to paint the false bow waves cracked while drying. Now the colors that were on the hull beneath have had MONTHS to dry and cure(perhaps a year or so...), so I know that is not the cause of said snag... I will give this a fewdays to dry completely and have another crack at it next week...

In order to avoid  any further unpleasantness, I put all painting aside for today and decided to addsmall fiddly bits to the superstuctures. Railings, reels, twin 105mm FLAK, and twin 37mm FLAK added to rear superstructure.

and railings, small boats( Whaleboats? Launches? Skiffs?), one crane, and twin 37mm FLAK added to forward superstructure.

Next up is touch ups of Hellgrau, adding the Dunkelgrau camo patterns,and then washes. Next week...

I think with your white paint color you may have used too much thinner. I have some MM Acryl paint colors and have successfully used at least 4 drops of Tamiya Thinner to thin the paint enough without it cracking.  Though I am looking at the very least of getting the Trumpeter Arado's since I have a 1/720 Blucher and a 1/700 Tirpitz and 1/700 MPC Graf Spee.

stikpusher

Yes, a Trumpeter Arado would be nice... but then I have no need for five more as the set comes with six... At best two more if I build Bismark...

Today's painting was going smoothly until... BANG..Major Snag... for some reason, the white paint (MM Acryl Marine Colors Schnellboot Weiss- did I mention that those paints bite???) which I used to paint the false bow waves cracked while drying. Now the colors that were on the hull beneath have had MONTHS to dry and cure(perhaps a year or so...), so I know that is not the cause of said snag... I will give this a fewdays to dry completely and have another crack at it next week...

In order to avoid  any further unpleasantness, I put all painting aside for today and decided to addsmall fiddly bits to the superstuctures. Railings, reels, twin 105mm FLAK, and twin 37mm FLAK added to rear superstructure.

and railings, small boats( Whaleboats? Launches? Skiffs?), one crane, and twin 37mm FLAK added to forward superstructure.

Next up is touch ups of Hellgrau, adding the Dunkelgrau camo patterns,and then washes. Next week...

Yes, a Trumpeter Arado would be nice... but then I have no need for five more as the set comes with six... At best two more if I build Bismark...

Today's painting was going smoothly until... BANG..Major Snag... for some reason, the white paint (MM Acryl Marine Colors Schnellboot Weiss- did I mention that those paints bite???) which I used to paint the false bow waves cracked while drying. Now the colors that were on the hull beneath have had MONTHS to dry and cure(perhaps a year or so...), so I know that is not the cause of said snag... I will give this a fewdays to dry completely and have another crack at it next week...

In order to avoid  any further unpleasantness, I put all painting aside for today and decided to addsmall fiddly bits to the superstuctures. Railings, reels, twin 105mm FLAK, and twin 37mm FLAK added to rear superstructure.

and railings, small boats( Whaleboats? Launches? Skiffs?), one crane, and twin 37mm FLAK added to forward superstructure.

Next up is touch ups of Hellgrau, adding the Dunkelgrau camo patterns,and then washes. Next week...

stikpusher

Oh yes, I added the cowl to the Arado yesterday. I am debating what to do about the canopy for finishing. Paint to represent a clear canopy, paint to represent a tarp over it, or use clear sprue to screatch build a clear canopy...

Too bad you didn't pick up the Trumpeter Arado's  they have a clear canopy.

That sounds reasonable....

Today's progress: A wash of Raw Umber to all wood decking areas. The wash worked great and looks better to my eyes than it does in these pics.  The overall effect is a weathered wood now...

the hull

Hull with superstructures in place

close ups of the fore and aft supperstructures

and a close up of the fantail for a better look at the effect achieved

After the wash dried madesome touch ups of the Hellgraucamo basecolor on small parts that needed it , painted the 20mm guns on the stack platform, and began the camo painting...

Stack

forward superstructure

aft rangefinder

gun directors

catapult

forward rangefinder

and after twin 105mm AA mount

Paint the canopy gloss black or very dark gloss blue and be done with it---in that scale it will look fine...

Oh yes, I added the cowl to the Arado yesterday. I am debating what to do about the canopy for finishing. Paint to represent a clear canopy, paint to represent a tarp over it, or use clear sprue to screatch build a clear canopy...

...cool...

Stik - nice to see this one back at the bench. Look forward to the rest! 

Today's update on the Graf... first off I fixed the first page's pics  as requested.

As for actual work I applied a "tint" of heavily thinned Tamiya Deck Tan to the wood decking areas. Not thinned as much as a wash but not opaque like standard paint coat. Just enough to tone down and gray out a bit the Testors Deck Tan I used orginally. Tomorrow after this has dried well I will apply a wash of Raw Umber to make it "pop". The original Testors color was just too bright and vivid in my eye for weathered wood decking.

In hindsight, after working with the MM Acryl Marine Colors (with their horrible adhesion properties) I should have approached this in a slightly different manner. 1st prime the plastic (Humbrol enamel is my prefferred), 2nd apply the MM base colors, 3rd apply the tints and washes, 4th glue the decks down... live and learn for the next one.

Anyways here is the original hull decking color

and after the "tint" coat

And here are the superstractures before...

and after "tint"

No... Manny had the Captain shoot himself after scuttling...

Rescribing panel lines on a 1/350 plane?! Now that's impressive!!!  Will the Captain have blue eyes?

Looking good Stik.......nice progress.

NO SCUTTLING!!! At least until we get a plastic RN Cruiser...

I will repost the original pics on the early WIP on my days off this week. (Tomorrow thru Thursday) I rearranged my Photobucket account and it killed all the old links when I did...

I love your Graf Spee and want to scuttle him...

Stikpusher - Your pics on the first post won't open for me for some reason - dang technology! But your second set of pics did open, and they look great! Can you repost some more pics? She's lookin' good and I'm waiting to see more. I personally like washes on ships to bring out the detail - in fact I think that ships, being in smaller scales than say aircraft or armor, benefit from heavier washes to highlight all the detail. I think it's referred to as scale viewing distance? Not sure, but I notice that close up pics of my ships do look a little "dirty" from the wash - but looking at them in real life in my display case you can really see the smallest details quite clearly.

I realize that it's really personal preference and I have to admit that after several modelers commented on my washes were too heavy (they were right) I lightened up things a bit and I am happy with the results.

Anyway, more pics please!

Mark

Graf Spee has been moved to the front of my build batting order now that I have completed most of those "near complete" builds from last year.  After watching one of the ship experten WIPs on the Trumpeter Zerstorer I formed some ideas as to how to proceed with building and finishing this beauty. Sub assemblies of building, painting and washes before being attached to the larger compnonents...

So here are some components such as the bridge area partially painted

the stack....

And forward area of the superstructure

 I made some mods to the Arado float plane. I hollowed out the area of the float supports as that had been molded solid... Also the raised detail lines were way too heavy so I used those a a guide, scribed in new ones, and sanded off the raised ones. I still need to attach the cowl.

and a teaser shot of all sub assemblies placed on the hull. This makes me want to finish her up...

I will have to look and see if I qualify for that one

stikpusher

Eric, at the moment I have this build sidelined while I finish up some other builds that are near completion.

Eric, at the moment I have this build sidelined while I finish up some other builds that are near completion.

Any updates on this one stik??

Thanks for the encouragement on the washes. I am gonna attempt some subdued washes on the decking. That  is really the only way to get some detail to stand out.

Cool...I disagree about not using washes on ships...I think the proper use of washes will make your decking more pleasing to the eye and break (and tone down) up some of the large swathes of grey...just be patient w/ them and don't try to do it all at once...

Thank you for the links. I will be coming up with something to try along those lines for the wood decking. I have been plugging away at this kit a little at a time.Today I removed all masking and touched up the wooden planks for an even base color. I also applied some dark gray to the appropriate areas on the forward superstructure.

After I took these pics, I finally glued down the main decks to the hull, but don't have any pics yet of that.

The skid markings are at best over scale, and at worst a fabrication.

Be careful with washes; I see a lot of guys slop it on and call it good; the true intent with a wash is to replicate the affect light has on real objects in a smaller scale.

Here's a technique for wood decks you might want to consider:

http://www.steelnavy.com/wood deck.htm

http://www.rollmodels.net/nworkbench/onlinebuild/arizona/arizona3.php

Thanks Jmart! I had considered a wash for added depth to the decks, but not the sun fading on the turrets. Good idea! As I said, any and all suggestions are welcome. I am all new to serious ship building and am taking it one step at a time here. I do plan on adding PE rails to other kits I Have in the stash, because I do see your point about the thick railings. I think the skid marking on deck plates nd planking it out of scale as well, but I am on baby steps here. My basic intent is to have her looking as she did on the morning before joining battle off the River Plate. At this point I am not overly pleased with the Deck Tan shade I have. Any suggestions for a "Teak" in the Testors, Humbrol, or Tamiya lines?

really nice job so far!

if you want suggestions, here are a couple:

For ships, the one item of PE/AM that you may want to ebetually add to your ship builds are the rails. Sort of engine grills for armor, or seatbelts/buckles for A/c. Ships just look a lot better with rails, and plastic molds of rails are way off scale (thick).

Ships have so much "grey", it is hard to break up the color monotone of the build. Weathering won't help you there, since most (if not all) weather decks (no pun intended!) were always kept clean/painted, except for a few ships at the end of long trips. You may want to give the decks a light wash to bring up some of the details. You can drybrush some areas of the turrets (as an example), to simulate some sun fading. You can add some rust-weathering to the anchor region.

My apologies if this is all well known to you : )   I have both the Shipcraft and Osprey volumes on German pocket battleships, let me know if you need any specific info or pic scans. I am in the planning stages for building the other two of the class, maybe I should check out the BoA GB!

Look forward to the rest of your build, cheers!

Thanks guys. Hopefully this weekend I will be able to make some more progress on her. I will post pics when I do.