Getting artistic!
Now the artistic stage, I sprayed a fine layer of Tamiya XF-17 Sea Blue over the entire seascape being careful not to get overspray on ship. After this I immediately switched to XF-18 Medium Blue, this was very painstakingly applied to the disturbed areas of the sea making tiny patches or swirls with the airbrush. You have to hold the airbrush virtually touching the sea; it takes a while but is part of the process. Once complete it doesn’t look like a sea but the next colour application is what brings it all to life.
First I cleaned the airbrush before reloading it with XF-2 Flat White; this was applied using similar motion as previous colour except you applying the whites of the crests of the waves and swirls of disturbed water and also the ship’s wake. The final application was some acrylic clear gloss varnish, this was applied using a brush, besides the sea you also have to splash a little part way up sides of hull. To finish the presentation of model the edges of base were hand painted in matt black with this the seascape is finished.
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Figures
The figures used on this model came from Fujimi, they are fully rounded injection moulded plastic figures and come in two sets, the first is figures standing and at attention and the second more relaxed action poses. Each box holds about 200-300 figures on plastic sprues. These are not easy to find in UK but I get mine from Hobby Link Japan, works out cheaper.
The figures were left on their sprues and primed in XF-2 Flat White, after drying I hand painted the uniforms and flesh using the Vallejo Model colour range of paints. The crew were painted in Duffel coats and other cold weather clothing being as the ship is portrayed on Northern Patrol. Once complete a thin oil paint wash of Raw Umber was applied with the excess removed using a clean flat brush. After drying for 24 hours the figures were carefully cut from their sprues and attached using a dab of superglue to their feet to hold them in place on the model. With all the figures secure I went around touching in the tops of the figures “caps” with a fine paint brush, white for officers and black grey for enlisted men.