[Brophmeister]

Yeah, thats one damned fine looking Tirpitz.






























WHY THE HELL DOSN'T MINE LOOK LIKE THAT!?







Sorry for the delay gents, I got a liitle bit distracted by moving house, new job, quitting job, another new job, you know, minor things that I shouldnt really be using as an excuse for not bulding this thing. So its time to resurrect this! Update coming shortly...[/b]

[Brophmeister]

All right ladies and gentlemen, lets kick things off!

The work station:



These are the basic tools I believe necessary to complete this kit. As you can see there is nothing particularly specialised and the whole lot can be had for about $30. Extra gear may be added to the stockpile at a later date as I find I need them. I do not reccomend eating the contents of the jar labelled "blueberry jam". This is, in fact, methylated spirits.

FIRST STEP: THE HULL

This is a very well moulded kit with minimal flashing (the extra plastic that seeps out of a bad mold) and preparing the hull for painting was a simple matter of a quick sand down.

First up we paint on the water line. We are not concerned about how neat this is, as it will be masked at a later time.



The next stage is to prepare the hull for spraying. At this point we mask the water line with Tamiya masking tape. I reccomend purchasing special modelling tape as regular masking tape islikely to strip the paint off. This special tape is also far more flexible and is easy to work around curved surfaces.





In the above image you can see I have applied mask to the screw shafts, already painted silver. In this image you can also see the white regions where filler was required to ensure an even surface.

Here is the hull, now spray painted in the deep red that was the colour of German rust-proofing.



In the image below you can see a fairly sizeable distortion in the paintwork. This is where I lingered too much with the spray can in a single spot, which caused the paint to build up and run. I had to quickly remove this area and spray it again, but alas I can still see it even now on the completed hull



After this we can now begin to apply the camouflague. Unfortunately I appear to have lost the photos that I took of this (or I just forgot to take them I can't remember any more). This stage simply involved applying mask at varying angles and then painting the appropriate colours on. Remove mask, repeat process.

Here is the final product:





As you can see, there is some discolouration in the paintwork in some areas where I have failed to mix the paint pots properly. It is very important to mix your paints well and thoroughly clean your brushes, as this is what will happen! But don't worry, I will be repainting these sections to achieve an acceptable final result!

I will now go ahead and apply weathering to the hull, in addition to attaching anchors, ladders and various sundry pieces. It will become too awkward to complete this process once the decks and superstructure are in place. You can already see in the two images above that I have been experimenting with some wash around the portholes on the stern.

COMING SOON.....

After the hull...... the deck!!!!

[Brophmeister]

Sorry guys, I'm trying to keep this updated but my digital camera appears to have died on me, and using a $2000 35mm Olympus with telephoto lens seems a little overkill. As soon as I have it working again I'll post more pics of where I'm at.

Update at this stage: the bow and stern decks are in place with turrets and other miscellaneous fixtures. I tried painting a swastika onto the bow as per photographs but it came out quite wonky, so I stripped it off and left the deck bare (historically, the swastika was only painted on when in home waters, so my variation is still accurate!).

The hull has been weathered by applying a sienna wash with watercolour paint paying careful attention to places where grime could build up, such as portholes and anchors. The same has been done to the decks. I was able to achieve a convincing wear effect by wiping the paint carefully with my pinkie. Visually this gives the appearance of heavily built up grime dripping down the side ofthe ship. This is the first time I have attempted this and I am quite pleased with the result.

I am in the process of building the central deck and once in place I will be moving onto the superstructure.

Will return shortly, hopefully with pics