Congratulations on the Customizer badge! Fantastic job on the pieces, and the damage markers are amazing!
Posts made by DMcLaren
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RE: Some of my stuff.
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RE: Custom carriers from OOB's and painted pieces
FOlewnik is currently working on an OOB Iowa BB sculpt modified to be the USS Missouri wearing US Navy Camo Measure 33, circa 1944. The box sculpt is an earlier representation that doesn’t have the added improved radar mounted fore of the bridge stack, so FOlewnik took a chunk of an OOB Fletcher sculpt and added it to the Iowa sculpt and cleaned it up with a tiny bit of putty. The sculpt required a lot of flash plastic removal and smoothing of some gun mount surfaces before the base coat could go on. I convinced him to make some sort of holder so he wouldn’t have to hold the piece with his fingers while painting (which causes paint to wear off and need touching up) and this is what he came up with, and has 3 of them now. The piece sits on two sided tape with a toothpick underneath so the bottom edges can get painted under. This piece has the base coat down & the mods done with the exception of the little Kingfisher that will go between the launch catapults under the recovery crane. The next step is to build up pigment “bumps” on the deck to represent deck guns and anchor bases. Then the tiny AA battery gun barrels get added to the little bumps and the anchor chain will be painted in, just like the Iowa as Alabama above. I grabbed some pictures from one of the above mentioned links to show the comparison with the real thing as well.
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RE: Custom carriers from OOB's and painted pieces
GHQ makes some very detailed pewter pieces in 1/2400 scale, the same scale as the A&A destroyers. Last year FOlewnik bought a set of Fletcher DD’s, and I’m pretty sure the sets of DE’s are Benham and Edsall Class. Here are one of each, with the middle DE wearing US Navy Camo Measure 5 Painted Bow Wave. The other two will get hull numbers:
Edit: Almost exactly a year later the Benham class USS Rowan (DD-405) gets its hull numbers:
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RE: Custom carriers from OOB's and painted pieces
Thank you, Chris. We appreciate your compliment!
My pal FOlewnik has been knocking out some amazing pieces for the US Navy. We’re using a mix of out of box (OOB) pieces, HBG South Dakota BB’s and Omaha class light cruisers, GHQ destroyers, and Shapeways carriers & BB’s from EBard for the unique ships of the fleet. We found some great source material sites for references- shipcamouflage.com and navsource.org. Some phenomenal pictures on both sites! Here are a few ships wearing US Navy Camo Measure 12; an OOB Iowa dressed as the USS Alabama (BB_60)-note the added deck guns, life boats, launch catapults and Kingfisher scout plane, an HBG Omaha CL class USS Milwaukee (CL-5) that also later got a scout plane, and GHQ’s USS Fletcher (DD-445), all circa 1944:
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RE: Custom carriers from OOB's and painted pieces
@tatsu Thank you very much! Your appreciation means a lot to us. My buddy and I are fortunate enough to live just outside Detroit, Michigan where we have a few nice hobby shops. He does the ships in acrylics and I do the aircraft in enamels. The acrylics come from the local hobby shop, as do most of the brushes (Micheal’s for good brushes, as well), but I can’t find Testor’s (also under the Model Master brand) enamel locally so I get it on Amazon (and the dullcote). “Army Painter” makes some great acrylics and fine, tiny brushes that allow fine lines and details (like their “Psycho” & “Insane Detail” brushes- get both!). Its the smaller brushes that will allow you to get the fine squiggly lines for camo and smaller lines for carrier decks. I’m pretty sure they’ll ship to you: https://www.thearmypainter.com/
I tried masking tape when I was trying to get straight black lines on the tops of the Japanese bombers, but the pieces are too small for masking tape to work effectively. I ended up using the reflected light from my magnifying lamp on the fuselage as a straight edge guide and hand lined it with a 20/0 brush and filled it with a 3/0. I have, though, made “stencil guides” out of 3x5 cards to do things like line up the “red tape” on the Spitfire wings by cutting a small piece of card and punching the nose of the aircraft through the card and folding it onto the wings, marking where the guns go with a pencil, removing the card, cutting a small hole where I marked, and then putting that on the nose of the aircraft, dab a spot of color in the hole to be squared later, and then reversing the card on the nose for the other wing. Also helps with decal placement if you don’t have a better measuring tool.
FOlewnik has started on the US Navy while I’m working on some UK bombers and US tacticals. The GHQ destroyers and destroyer escorts that FOlewnik got at last year’s “Check Your 6!” gameday in Dayton, OH are finally getting a coat of paint and some proper hull numbers and are looking good. Testor’s makes decal sheets that I’ve been experimenting with to good effect for the underside of the Dauntless SBD and their top side control surfaces (like dive flaps and ailerons). Below are HBG’s South Dakota BB and GHQ’s DD USS Helm (NOT DE Lansing as previously thought- Helm received 11 battle stars for her World War II service in the Pacific). by FOlewnik in acrylic (I’d just put the hull numbers on and hadn’t put Microsol on them yet and they’re not dullcoted-BB needs touch-up), and my test tactical (try not to chuckle at the sound of that) in enamel with my home made decal top and bottom. I’m not happy with the inked rudder and the rest of the tacticals won’t get the full bottom and top that the test piece got. It still needs the exhaust drawn in and another engine vent on each side, and the test decal isn’t straight on one rear wing on the bottom, but I’m pleased with the potential.
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RE: Custom carriers from OOB's and painted pieces
Added final Japanese bombers pictures to page 2 and forgot to mention the added UK finished fighters on page 3. If you like them, please click the little heart at the bottom right of the post and show them some love!
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RE: Custom carriers from OOB's and painted pieces
I added a final picture of the Japanese fighters to the Zeroes picture post on the bottom of page 2, right above the finished Aichi D3A Vals. There is a slight difference in Zero sculpts between sets- one set has a thinner rudder and wings, but not by much.
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RE: First time painted game pieces for 3G40
Ah, yet another good use for the coasters!
I was awarded the Customizer badge at some point unknown, but marked on my pictures post as to when I found out I was a recipient. There is a post somewhere on the forums that tells of the process and from what I recall one has to be nominated by someone to a moderator and there is some sort of review process. Here’s a link to the award discussion thread: https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/24173/customizers-round-2
Glad you enjoy the pics and tips! We all inspire each other with our pictures, tips, and techniques, so keep sharing!
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RE: First time painted game pieces for 3G40
I just noticed the UK coaster roundel from HBG with a ship and some chips on the lower left of the last picture. We use them for our “Buy Box” so we don’t have to reach across the board. Is that what you use them for as well?
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RE: Combat Flag Markers (+pdf download)
These are great. Laughed at reason 11 on the video- good one!
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RE: First time painted game pieces for 3G40
LOVE those biplanes!!! They look awesome! The game in progress shots give a great view of both the map and the pieces. I don’t know what you paid for that map, but it was worth every penny! Is that a GHQ transport I see in P-50?
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RE: First time painted game pieces for 3G40
@sansmerci War at Sea collection? I’ll have to check those out- they’d be great for tabletop Victory at Sea on a hex map, too. The letters and number decal sheets at HBG are the I-94 decals, so if you got those, you’re all set! I’d advise getting a few sets of each color- you can get creative in the use of sections of letters for colored stripes and such. And that map is a thing of beauty- where did that come from?
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RE: First time painted game pieces for 3G40
These are great! If you want to get squadron letters and numbers for your aircraft, the white letter and number sheet from I-94 has the perfect size. Great looking aircraft, and carriers too! Where did you get the carriers? Did you do the decks on them?
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RE: Custom carriers from OOB's and painted pieces
Thanks, guys. Glad you like the pieces. I replaced the pictures of the Vals on the bottom of page 2 with recent pictures of the finished bunch with their canopies done. We realized we’d never finished the canopies on the Oscars, so when those are done I’ll replace the picture of the Japanese fighters. We wanted to show how the camouflage schemes of the Imperial Japanese Navy went together so we put a few sorties together for a few runs down The Slot.
The Night Raiders:
The Coastal Fleet:
And my personal favorite, The Fleet of Fog:
(Can you find the 6 airplanes in the Fog Fleet?) -
RE: First time painted game pieces for 3G40
Nice! I like those aircraft stands, too. You could play “Check Your 6!” with those stands.
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RE: Custom carriers from OOB's and painted pieces
A while ago, HBG had a sale on orange pieces so I took advantage of it and bought a lot of aircraft on the cheap. While looking for paint schemes for TBF Avengers, I came across a set of pictures of a model someone had built of a Royal Navy Avenger and decided it would be the first I attempted so I could add it to the Mosquitoes. While looking for better pictures of the canopy I found another depiction on Wings Palette with a description of its history. I haven’t put the magnet in it yet, but that will go in soon.
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RE: Custom carriers from OOB's and painted pieces
A few of the blurry pictures on the first page of the post have been replaced with better pictures, and pictures have been added to the finished IJN Shoho post earlier in the thread, and a destroyer family photo added of the IJN destroyers. Speaking of family photos, here are all the IJN aircraft carriers together. The last one still to complete is on the far right of the capital carriers- it just needs the deck painted. It’s a “what if” carrier of a converted battleship the Japanese player can upgrade to when fixing a damaged battleship. (The Japanese originally planned this for the Ise but went with a scaled down version to retain the big guns.) Might take a turn to convert, we haven’t play-tested it yet. The light carriers have the IJN Hiyo with them on the left just because of length- FOlewnik put 2 magnets in it so we could use it for either light or capital. You can see the finished canopies on the Zeroes.
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RE: Custom carriers from OOB's and painted pieces
Oh! lol, no. We use the smallest version of the Litko “Flaming Wreckage” markers. They sit well on carriers, but have to sit next to ships.
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RE: Custom carriers from OOB's and painted pieces
Not carriers but I posted a picture of the Takaos a few pages back in an older post (to compare over time) that need a rest and refit to replace their scout planes.
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RE: Custom carriers from OOB's and painted pieces
The IJN Junyo has been done for a while but I’ve just now gotten around to cropping the pictures to post. So without further ado, FOlewnik’s (a.k.a. FJO) IJN Junyo in late war livery made from a Shinano sculpt.