1/3000th WW2 Naval - From box to table

1/3000 WW2 Naval - From box to table

After the success of the last (and first) From Box to Table blog, which got half as much again in reads as my previous most popular post, I thought I would continue with the idea as its clearly useful for some of you guys and gals to see how I do stuff and hopefully get some ideas for your own painting. I started reading other blogs to get ideas, if I can pass on ideas to others then that's great.

A British destroyer finished with the method described below

This post covers 1/3000 Naval, which has consistently been the least popular (usually half the normal numbers of reads) so probably not the best way to increase my follower numbers but its what was next in the production list. I have used this method for years, I used to paint 1/6000 Figurehead ships for Hallmark so that the owner had a stock of painted stuff to sell at shows so I can safely say I have done thousands of ships this way over the years, its mostly technique rather than skill even Mrs Yarkshire has been known to paint a bit of sea in her time.

So lets introduce our two "models" for this blog, both from www.skytrex.com HMS Hood (4 turrets to your right) and HMS Renown. First job is to clean up the metal casting and glue it to a base, I use artist mounting board. Stage two is to create a textured sea base, I use polyfilla or similar straight from the pot, I use a knife to form the filler with a bow wave at the front of the model and a flat tag space at the rear. It takes a while to get this right at first but you soon get the hang of it, of course the smaller 1/6000 stuff come with a pre cast textured sea base.

All paints are Vallejo unless otherwise stated.

After leaving overnight for the filler to dry I use the trusty Matt Black Halfords spray primer to undercoat the whole thing, then I paint the whole of the sea area with Miniature Paints Navy Blue, you can see with the black undercoat there is already some shading going on.

Next up is the painting of the sea, on the left the first stage, this is a heavy dry brush ( ie I don't remove that much paint off before dragging the brush across the surface) with 930 Dark Blue followed by a lighter dry brush of 904 Dark Blue Grey on the right.

Two views of the sea finishing stages, HMS Hood at the back in the top photo and to the left above has had a light dry brush of 820 Off White on the whole of the base. HMS Renown has then had the sea base finished by me painting the bow waves and prop wake in Off White, I also apply an extra spot of dry brush down the side of the ship where it would disturb the water. While the white paint is out I hand paint the ships name on the rear of the base.

The sea painting can be as messy as you like, a bit of blue paint on the ship is no problem at all, in fact a build up of filler around the bow painted white really gives the feeling of the ship cutting through the water at speed. The next stage painting the ship its base colour is one of the few stages that needs a bit of accuracy and patience (the other being the deck painting). Renown (now named so you can see it) has had a base coat of 992 Neutral Grey applied along the belt and all over the superstructure, Hood shows the next stage where the Neutral Grey has been dry brushed with 990 Light Grey.

Hood shows the next stage, she has been lightly dry brushed with 820 Off White and the Renown has had its deck painted 912 Tan Yellow.

These are two shots of the "finished" ships ready for the table, an ink wash of Army Painters Strong Tone ink on the decks, Lifeboats highlighted white and funnel tops black.

A final splash of "dazzle" camo on Renown, Hood was sunk painted grey and has been left as she was on the day she was lost.

Hopefully that is a useful guide to getting your ships on the table, each Nationality had their own colour schemes and little quirks, the above book (if you can find it) gives a lot of detail, however these days a google search brings up most things.