1/3000 naval sets

And now for something completely different...

It's birthday season in house Prufrock, and while the kids were ransacking the local toy shop for MineCraft accessories to spend some of their gift money on I trotted over to have a quick look at the plastic models section. Would you believe it, but they had four 1/3000 WWII dock sets in. 1/3000 naval is something I've wanted to get into for some time now so this fool and his money were quickly parted.

At home tonight I opened up the Yokosuka naval base set to have a gander and liked what I saw. There are ten ships and a diorama base, so you get quite a lot for your money.

The models are very finely made, and everything seems to have been engineered with typical Japanese exactitude. The battleships are absolutely lovely, but I decided to start with something a little simpler.

Here is the sprue for the carrier Shokaku.

And another for the Fubuki class destroyers.

The three pieces for the carrier went together very nicely, and only slight trimming was needed.

Definitely similar to the real thing!

By Unknown - 広島県呉市海事歴史科学館所蔵品。(Hiroshima Prefecture Yamato Museum collection), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3579869

An excellent find, and I'm very pleased. I'm not confident in my painting on hard plastic and in this scale, however, so hopefully I won't stuff things up too much in the next step!

First foray into 1/700 plastic

I have a secret shame. The last few months I've been amassing boxes of 1/700 aircraft and buildings. I don't really know why, but every time I see a kit in a local hobby shot I've felt compelled to purchase it. I suppose I have vague notions of using them for some kind of WWII or Moderns air-warfare game, but it's all very hazy indeed.

Anyway, I opened up the the box of 1/700 buildings and decided to make them up as a tester.

It is a Pit-Road Skywave kit, and for about US$7 you get a total of nine buildings. They are very small but superbly detailed.

The thing is, how do you paint the blighters? Do you undercoat and risk covering up the detail, or just paint straight on and risk poor coverage? Any thoughts?