World War 2 at sea

Two days ago, I got my 3D-print of a super-detailed 1/1800-scale, short-bow Essex-class Fleet Carrier, as well as 220 late war US Navy-aircraft in the same scale.Before I primed and started painting the model, I had to do some prep work to make sure the teeny-tiny aircraft are positioned neatly on the flight deck. I drilled a tiny hole .5mm in diameter into the underside of each aircraft, and a corresponding hole into the flight deck. I then glued a short piece of .5mm fiberoptic cable into the hole in each aircraft. Since I’m crazy, I decided to put 25 aircraft on the flight deck, all of which I had to prepare… The aircraft are 14 Hellcat fighters, 5 Avenger torpedo bombers and 6 Helldiver dive bombers, all of which will wear their 1945 glossy sea-blue camouflage.With that done, I gave the ship a black undercoat and then gave it an even zenithal first with medium grey and then with white to get neat shadows and highlights for the major volumes of the ship. I did the same with the aircraft, which I painted seperately.

Next, I painted the lower half of the hull and the flight deck in a medium blue as per the Measure 12 camouflage scheme the USS Lexington (CV-16) wore in 1945. The flight deck also got a thin red line across the middle of its whole length, and I also weathered it along its vertical wood planking where the colour would be most likely to be worn off – at the front especially along the two steam-powered catapults where aircraft took off, as well at the back end where aircraft landed. After details on the deck were painted, I glued the painted aircraft into place and proceeded painting the rest of the ship. I wheathered the sides of the hull, and the rest was all detail work, only a little bit of which remains to be finished.

Here are two images of the work in progress – it’s almost done: