Small progress report. To summarize the artistic challenge that I am facing with limited skills I have a kit that wants to look like this (except in the view of most modelers white):
But I want it to look like this:
I've never made a dio, so all I want to do is cut the hull in half and get the deck to fit. (I think I've got my hands full with a battleship and a bad dio would cripple the model. So I want is a very large version of a 1/770 scale Tamiya or Fujimi waterline warship.) Here is the first stage:
Because ships are modular you pretty need to have your colors down from the beginning. I want this ship to wear warpaint appropriate for the (at the time) epic battle of Santiago. Nobody is really sure what this color is. Someone on ship modeler refers to a color that would look like RLM02 - a dark greenish gray. Another wants something closer to RLM75 - gray violet. WEM has a color for these ships they call "Slate" and here's a sample:
Better than no help but is this adjusted for scale? I've only got one photo and from past experience (especially with the early Zero) I know that grays can drive you bats. What everyone agrees on is that the color we're looking for is not the pre-wwii neutral gray. So do we want a neutral gray simply shaded (I doubt this) or are we looking for a dark gray with a tint of blue or green? This is big ship. It's very close in size to the ICM 1/350 Konig I did last fall. At that size, getting more or less the right color is pretty important. (I'm not worried about the deck: it's some kind of buff and there will be at least three varieties.) So I'm going to have to work around the smaller stuff or maybe do as much deck as possible until I get a bottle of WEM Slate that I ordered yesterday. So it will join my WEM Navy Blue and Deck Blue as color samples. Outside of washes and some drybrushing, I haven't worked with enamel paints seriously for fifty years and don't plan to start.(Personal preference only - if I had a really well ventilated room and spray box I might sing a different tune. Enamels certainly leave a splendid finish.)
One thing I was able to do was reinforce the remaining hull with sprue (I cut off 60% easy) and put on a styrene bottom. Then I gave the beast a pre-shade painting the hull carbon black and the deck a dark reddish brown. So this is where we are now:
Considering the small number of parts involved, progress has been slow. I also don't have anything to do for a few weeks. That hurts modeling. I find myself reading, socializing and watching movies. My wife will be back in town soon and then modeling becomes a productive activity. Anyway, forward toward Manifest Destiny.
Eric