1/1200 IJNS Yamato and IJNS Mushashi (again) Picture Extravaganza of Japanses Super-Dreadnoughts

Have camera will play! The "deadly sisters" IJNS Yamato (top) and IJNS Mushashi (below) on a stretched canvas or should I say ersatz sea of "blue pacific" oils:

From the high level bombing run (see above) to the low level reconnaissance pass (see below) with enemy armaments turning:

Just camera-happy clicking away (see below):

A close up of the IJNS Yamato's stern (see below). Here you can see the only real modelling difference between the two (Yamato and Mushashi) in the Revell kits. There is extra AA mounted on the the rear (Y turret) and forward 18" (B turret) main batteries of the Yamato:

Extra AA seen here on the front B turret (see below):

Still plenty of film left in the camera so I kept clicking away. The "long" shot (see below), not what you want to see coming at you at 25 knots:

Impressive even going looking back opposite way at the beasts (see below):

The IJNS Yamato in profile (see below):

And again:

Back to the high level target for the B-17's again (see below) plus can you see the edge of the world (see bottom of the picture below):

Any excuse for a close up, even slightly fuzzy, of those 18" batteries (see below):

The last picture of the series, let's not forget there is the IJNS Mushashi too (see below). After all I did her first over a year ago now (and even pretended she was meant to be the Yamato, oh the indignity) so let me give her a moment in the sun.

Well I thought I would blast these pictures out in one big post and get it all over and done with. I have to say I enjoyed that. There is the small question of an outstanding IJN carrier to finish, but I sense the need to move on too.

Are the fellow "treadheads" missing the tanks? I've got some more pictures lined up of early war  stuff to come, though yo might be surprised at the scale of these chaps ;)

1/1200 IJNS Yamato gets some TLC ... highlighting

Three sisters (IJNS Yamato [bottom], IJNS Shinano [middle], IJNS Mushashi [top]):

The Yamato (right) gets some highlight work done (see below [right]), I decided to plane her aircraft white as per the Shinano 'air group'. The Mushashi's (see below [left]) planes are painted green, so at a glance I can tell the models apart!

Just playing around with the camera seeing them sideways from above. To highlight I added Tamiya Nuetral Grey XF-53 to the Games Workshop Adeptus BattleGrey, then added some Anita's Acrylics Cream White:

And then skewed at an angle (Yamato [top], Mushashi [bottom]):

It's a nice feeling now the battleships are done! I'll have to do the same to the Shinano now ;)

The 1/1200 IJNS Yamato gets a lick of paint ...

The IJNS Yamato gets the flat black (XF-1 Black) Tamiya treatment (see below):

The artistic long shot (see below). IJNS Shinano is base coated with Games Workshop Adepoptus BattleGrey (Grey) and Tanned Flesh (Pink) :

A close up of the Shinano "air group" (see below) complete with 'tricky' red markings:

It is slow progress less than an hour a per night but bit-by-bit I am getting there! Then blink and something quite spectacular happens to the IJNS Yamato ;)

(See below) The Yamato is base-coated Games Workshop Adeptus BattleGrey for her steel deck and Vallejo "Game Color"[Sic] Leather Brown as the stand in for Games Workshop's Snakebite Leather (Decking).

The IJNS Mushashi appears in Blue Peter style, "here's one I prepared earlier", to act as painting guide reminder so I can get the end result looking pretty similar. They also stand together posed nicely as the 'pack of three Yamato sisters' Japanese from the Revell "Mini-Ship" series.

Still not finished "highlighting" still to do.

Japanese WWII Dreadnought Battleships 1/3000

Seen below some "heavy metal" of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) in a sheltered anchorage somewhere in the Pacific.

In the fore are the super-dreadnoughts Yamato and Musashi (both wielding 9 x18" guns), behind them Mutsu and Natagto (8 x 16" main armament, the Japanese version of the RN Queen Elizabeth class) and lingering in the distance the Fuso and Yamishiri (12 x 14" broadside).

Again from a different angle. This mass of armoured metal was outmoded by the time of WWII in the Pacific Theatre, where air power was the dominant deciding factor. Still very nice to paint up :)

The rest of the IJN awaits for1941 and the Pacific War scenarios (all the above are Navwar 1/3000 figures).

Footnote: This page amongst all my postings is the most popular by far and away. Is it just being picked up by the search engines for people interested in the Pacific War?

Yamato continued

Taking it down to low level hell:

Your bomb doors must now be open, but in all honesty could you say the same for your eyes at this point? Fingers crossed here goes!

Sometimes when you get your teeth into something you are not quite satisfied until you get a little more from it. The 1/3000 scale Yamato was actually painted after its slightly bigger 1:1200 Revell brother here (in fact sister, as the kit I have is in fact of the Musashi.)

I was seeking some meat to the bone and my crazy collection of plastic 1:1200 ships (long forgotten about in a cupboard) came to my rescue. All I need now is for Airfix to re-release their old 1:1200 "Sink the Bismarck" ships so I can get my hands on the old HMS Hood:)

[Footnote: A little bit of after the fact internet research shows that the yellow decking should extend slightly further forward on the 1:1200 model, well I'm not going to have a sleepless night over that, I'll putit down on the future Sunday afternoon job list.]

One fine day (in retirement) I may get round to doing her in 1/700 as those Japanese kits are beautiful (I fear I'll never move up to the motorised 1/350). Wargaming wise this is all crazy as even 1/3000 seems too large at times for tabletop naval battles without the aid of a ballroom.

Yamato Progress

The (painted) Yamato is spotted! Coming down from on high:

Getting bigger and bigger all the time.

Will your luck hold or the murderous flak get you?

The ocean effect courtesy of an artist stretched canvas, thinly smeared in flexible filler (hence the ridgy cracked nature), painted dark blue. It is a WIP experimentation inspired from some comments posted on the awargamingodyssey blog (a nice recommended read).