The Unofficial Airfix Modellers' Forum

Well John, sometimes the details are what it's all about.

I know square root of nothing about the Battle of the River Plate, but your Ajax is looking lovely. The PE is really making a difference.

regards,

Martin

Actually, it's worse than that.

I have a book on FAA camo & markings, with b/w photos and a derived color profile, which claims Ajax SeaFox was in a "local" camo of a couple shades of grey over the aluminum. Unfortunately, the photos only show the nose & floats well but nothing else and the profile doesn't guess at it very much -- but it is obvious the SeaFox is not in standard FAA camo of 1938-39, in part understandable since a repaint would only occur when back in port for some maintenance.

Its looking good John,

Ah the joys of PE and the hungry carpet monster! I understand the realistic concerns, as I am intending to make a small change in trying to be more historically accurate!

Justin

Tell me what you think. Here's a couple days work making an ocean for Ajax to be slicing through.











I make a base, then spray with some Tamiya AS- blue & green colors to get an oceany look. That gets covered with an acrylic clear window/door caulk. I tease it into waves, build bow waves, etc … that's where I am now.

Once happy with my water, it'll get a blueish wash then a drybrush with white to get the wave caps ….

I have not done the two shell splashes, but you'll see where I have the base of those splashes.

So, reasonably close to the box art, or do I need more work and where …. building up waves along the Ajax is tough because I'm not doing this with the model in place, and don't really want to as I usually end up screwing up the model..

Looking good so far,

A suggestion for building the waves up if I may, I have used plastic card to build a fake hull using the original model as the guide, slot the fake hull into position in the water, do the necessary, wait for it all to cure or dry. Remove said fake hull and hopefully, et voila!

Regards

Justin

Good thought, I've been doing that sort of -- one of my ebay Ajax was partly, and very poorly, started so it has been my mold -- I'll try to get it a bit closer. The stuff I use is a bit tenacious and I'd hate to find my wonderful base has this shoddy hull trapped in it ....

Here we are after several more iterations of working on the water, particularly the bow wave and wake, and adding shell splashes. These are acrylic rod with my "water" pulled up them to look kinda like a splash (no, not him) ….






Bow wave up close …



Wake plus a shell splash ….



Graf Spee is about to have a bad day ….



Unless y'all think I'm way off track, the next step is to get some blueish color in the water and some white on the waves and splashes -- another thing requiring artistry I do not have ….

That's looking really ace John. Definitely go with white on the waves/splashes, but I'm not sure about blue on the water - it looks fine to me as is, the dark colour on the baseboard gives the impression of dark, deep sea below to me, but then I can't see the real McCoy (yet) so you may well be right about adding some more tone. Just my opinion, do what your gut tells you is right - I do on my dioramas, and have lucked out more times than not
Really can't wait to see this in the flesh in November.
Cheers
Al.

Water looks wet to me - spot on! And love your idea for replicating the spalshes!!

It is looking really good and I am gutted that I won't be able to see it in the flesh this year.

I agree with beany John,

White on the wave aps and the splashes but i am not sure if you need any extra blue on the sea either, it looks very good.

Regards

Justin

Very remiss of me John, but I missed your last post those water spurts looks brilliant. I'm sure we'll be spend the weekend explaining how you did them

This has been stalled for same reason given in Riflemen status, however, yesterday I got one side of all the PE rails painted and some touch-up to the deck. Final assembly is near. Including a 1/600 Seafox ....

I have to test any water color - I'm going to test a very thin blue/green, and regardless dry-brush white. That leaves the background and the gunfire & funnel smoke. I could use some quick hints on coloring cotton balls so they look wispy, not damp. I think the back ground will be a simple color similar to the box art, with GS painted on. I'm having a real historical issue with the Seafox stil on board and the Spee apparently heavily damaged and have to get over it I guess.


BTW, I will mail separately, as soon as one is done.

Never mind - I refound Beany's post on the subject "Or you could try what I did with G-for-George and mix ground up black and grey chalk pastels into the cotton wool - a rather messy procedure but worth a try. "

I am behind and heavily involved in a community event through next weekend. Nonetheless, I have had dribbles of bench time.

Ready to put on crane; boats painted; Sea Fox repainted a very Lt Grey to be closer to the boxart than reality.



Need a bit of weathering, do the Carley floats & turrets, masts & rigging, then get into railings, backdrop and smoke.

Be back as soon as I can …. I still intend to finish "in time" ….

Looking good John,

The water splashes look very good, its coming together nicely,

Regards

Justin