Micronaut Only Thread

jb · Post by jb » Wed Nov 19, 2008 7:21 am

Chris,
Beautiful job! The weathering is quite profound. How did you do the flag? I found the best way to do flags in this scale is to put the picture on Microsoft word and shrink the percentage down when printing. It seems that when using Word no detail is lost when shrinking the print

cbovill · Post by **cbovill** » Wed Nov 19, 2008 9:32 am

JB,

That's a good idea. Right now I've been using tin foil cut to shape and then painting the flag on. I like the foil because it holds its shape well and you can put nice realistic folds or waves into it to simulate a flag fluttering in the wind. If I can get this effect on paper then the flags will be perfect.

Chris

cbovill · Post by **cbovill** » Mon Nov 24, 2008 5:02 am

I added Air Group 6 to the USS Intrepid and a little more story line. My buddy's grandfather served on board the Intrepid in 1944 when she engaged in the raids in the Marshalls and against Truk where the Intrepid took a hit that sent her back to the US for repairs. His name was Gene Harvey, he was a plane captain in charge of an F6F Hellcat and passed away a little over a year ago. I have a picture of him below:

Shown below are pictures of the Intrepid in Measure 21 with elements of Air Group 6 arranged on the flight deck. A flight of four F6F Hellcats from VF-6 are preparing to take off, while three more flights are on deck. Also, two flights of SBD Dauntless dive-bombers are aft, while two F4U Corsairs from VFN-101 have been brought on deck, they served as the night fighter squadron in February. All aircraft are painted in the mid-war tri-color scheme of sea blue, intermediate blue and insignia white. I tried painting stars on them but was unable to do so at this scale. Each star would have been less than a millimeter across - just couldn't do it. So I represented where the stars would be with white circles.

The Intrepid is now on her way to California for Thanksgiving and to meet her new family. Now I've got to go and order some ** CENSORED ** class carriers for myself, these ships were just awesome and probably my favorite carriers. Wouldn't mind building them all - budget and time permitting.

Chris

Ritter · Post by **Ritter** » Mon Nov 24, 2008 6:48 am

cbovill,

Those Carrier and aircraft look amazing! Very nice weathering and attention to detail! The deck looks great too!

Troy

Carl67 · Post by **Carl67** » Mon Nov 24, 2008 9:21 am

CV 11 Intrepid looks awesome -great job

Carl

jb · Post by jb » Mon Nov 24, 2008 9:43 am

Chris,
Those AC are the frosting on the cake, Wonderful!

cbovill · Post by **cbovill** » Tue Dec 23, 2008 10:41 am

Okay, am I the only one building ships out here? C'mon guys, start posting some pix! I've noticed the number of postings on this forum seem to be dwindling, so let's kick off the new year with some new pictures of what everyone's been working on. To start, I'm going to show the first batch of ships from my new USN. My previous US fleet died 20 years ago, and now it is being painstakingly rebuilt from zero. So here goes...

First up is the USS Lexington CV-2, or "Lady Lex" as she was known. She is shown below in Measure 11 which she wore at the Battle of the Coral Sea in May of '42 where she was sunk. Please ignore the giant 8" gun turrets that would not have been on her at that time, I just didn't have any machine gun tubs to replace them with. Attn GHQ: great idea for another model - Lex as she was outfitted for Coral Sea.

USS Lexington in the middle of launching a flight of Douglas SBD Dauntless scout bombers of VS-2, with a flight of three Grumman F4F Wildcats waiting to take off on CAP from VF-3 (don't know why but the Saratoga and the Lexington swapped fighter squadrons before the battle).

USS Lexington

USS Yorktown CV-5 wearing Measure 12 paint scheme preparing to launch an air strike from carrier air group five (CAG-5)

USS Yorktown

USS Curtiss AV-4 in Measure 12, one of the venerable seaplane tenders in the USN, I've always thought these ships are pretty cool.

Here's a somewhat blurred image of her hanger deck with a Consolidated PBY Catalina on board.

USS Neosho AO-23 also in Measure 12, she was mistaken for an aircraft carrier at Coral Sea and sunk. She is actually quite a big ship, so I can see how they made the mistake.

USS Neosho

I know its hard to see in this horrible picture, but this is Carrier Air Group 5 from the USS Yorktown on its way to strike at the heart of the Japanese Empire. Aloft we have 21 Wildcat fighters, 36 Dauntless dive bombers, and 9 Devastator torpedo bombers. Go get 'em boys!

Here's a closeup of my Grumman TBF Avengers posing as Douglas TBD Devastators in their mid 1942 camo scheme of blue-gray topside and light gray bottoms.

Next up after the holidays will be the ships of TF 17 that supported these awesome carriers. Hope you enjoy the show!

Chris

Mk 1 · Post by **Mk 1** » Tue Dec 23, 2008 11:44 am

Great stuff, Chris, just great!

You already know what a fan I am of your ship-building, but these guys are really top-notch stuff!

The weathering of the Lady Lex's hull is very impressive. She looks like the grand old lady of your fleet.

The differences in the paint schemes shows the level of research behind your work. Also the deck-placement shows care and thought. All of that comes through in the finished product.

And as has been said before, you really have a nack for the bases. I can't help but notice on the Neosho how you can see where a wave has slapped against the hull on the port side. That's a touch of "character" that makes even something as dull as a tanker come alive with personality.

Very well done, my friend.

jb · Post by jb » Tue Dec 23, 2008 4:43 pm

Very nice work Chris, as always. Thanks for the post.

Thomaso827 · Post by **Thomaso827** » Tue Dec 23, 2008 8:54 pm

Beautiful job. I've been working on a US WW2 fleet for a friend and some US moderns for myself.

I'd love to get a game in but things slowed way down for naval minis at the local game store here in Dayton, and my buddy in Alexandria VA said the same thing happened at his favorite shop. Built fleets, everyone played for a bit, now nothing. Guess I have to either build the other side and try to get new players interested, or play solitare what-if's between ships of the same nation. Only thing big on the tables here are GW products or FoW.

Tom

pmskaar · Post by **pmskaar** » Tue Dec 23, 2008 9:30 pm

Hi Chris

Excellent work on your ships as always. I also have painted some of the ships in the past and have a pretty large number still to do. I agree that it would be nice if GHQ did the Lexington as she appeared at Coral Sea. I have 2 Lexingtons - both unpainted - which are nice for the Lexington and Saratoga immediately after Pearl Harbor. I posted a 1942 version of the Saratoga to be included in a future GHQ release as well as the 1942 versions of Enterprise and Yorktown which were not perfect sisters of the Hornet.
Perhaps others seeing your fine work on these ships might consider adding some votes for these ships on the consolidated wish list.
If I wasn't so busy doing WWII Micro Armor, I would love to get back to doing some more ships. Your work is an inspiration. Keep it coming.

Pete - Binpicker, Out!

Mauser · Post by **Mauser** » Wed Dec 24, 2008 12:05 am

Hi Chris,

Those ships and planes are a beautiful piece of work. Makes me wish I had a Japanese task force to challenge them.
You did a real nice job of weathering the decks to bring them alive. Can't wait to see more!

Thanks,
Matt

battlewagon · Post by **battlewagon** » Wed Dec 24, 2008 11:52 pm

Chris,

Awesome job on the ships! Could you give us a "play by play" breakdown on how you painted and weathered the Yorktown's flight deck? Thanks in advance.

Matt

cbovill · Post by **cbovill** » Thu Dec 25, 2008 3:59 am

Thanks for all the wonderful comments guys! I love painting these up and sharing the results with an appreciate crowd. Lord knows my wife just looks at me funny.

Painting the Yorktown's flight deck - I'm using Model Master Marine Acrylic paints but they don't seem to match up well at this scale with what the colors should look like. So for the flight deck stain, I added one part Sea Blue to it and sprayed that on.

Then after allowing for it to completely dry, I began the long and arduous task of masking the deck for the dotted lines that run down the length of the flight deck. This is a multi-phase process that involves painting the two outer solid lines, then going back and adding the third middle solid line. Then mask off again and repaint the deck with flight deck stain. This last part is tricky because I was custom mixing the color, so the shade will never be an absolute match, which actually turned out to be a benefit because it added character and depth to the deck.

Next up was to weather the deck to make it look right for a carrier that has been out at sea for a while and engaged in flight ops. For this I used Tamiya's soot/rust/snow pigment kit. These three colors together produce a great effect for ships at sea. I use the rust as rust on the hull and for wear on the flight deck. The snow gives a great calcified look to the paint job that happens when salt water hits metal and paint. Finally the soot is great for showing wear to the paint job and for the touch down and take off marks on the flight deck. The combined effect is pretty cool. Unfortunately, the aircraft parked on the after portion of the flight deck are hiding a good deal of this weathering effect.

...and it would be nice to see a new model of Lexington for Coral Sea with 8" gun turrets removed and a first model for the Yorktown CV-5 as she was different from Hornet, and the Enterprise model is a late war model.

Chris