Mike, I thought of that and if I get stuck I can always shrink them down too. I'm forcing myself to learn new techniques, ie scratchbuilding, which is just a short hop to outright designing. I have a few Profile Morskie books which are incredible. I was playing with the Hatshushima book, I scanned some of it into my MGI program, and the parts almost magically translated into 3D parts. I fiddled around the 3 view drawings added some color and the parts actually came out ok. My mistake was one of scale and the files came out Huge @ 40Mb! Also, in 1/250 when I added the little details, on the screen they look big but when you print them out they were like fly dirt on a table cloth! Thanks for your input
JSC's Shimakaze-The Hard way
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A few things today. Had to watch the playoffs ,my wife's team (Eagles), and son's (Patriots) won. Now his has to play mine next week. The Superbowl will be real interesting in our house-divided! Anyways whilst watching I started on the searchlight deck and the upper bridge works and main gun director. More later....
A few things made while waitin' at work. Finally decided on finished 25mm design. It is half of the stock kit, the actual gun mount but the base, the gun breeches barrels and sights are scratch built. This will work for the triples if I expand the carriage and mount. Also is a shot of the flak platform and a prototype rear stack, dry fit with 2 of the 25mm twins. I built up the kits' boat and it isn't half bad. The only mods were just painting it so it looked better. Anyways it was a long night shift, another tonight, more latter....
Hi Guys, I was just playing around with that squirlz program and a screen capture, When the little quirks get worked thru this will make some neat pics :!:
A little progress for today. Very hectic here with work, snow, etc. The fwd torpedo tube mount is finally finished. This turret thing has a lot of rails and stuff that I thought I simplified but there are still alot of the darn things on there... more later. Final football playoffs tomorrow. Maybe a Pennsylvania superball this year. (Steelers/Eagles).
Hi Guys, slow progress but trudging ahead. Started finishing a few of the various decks and platforms. The forward stack is almost done. All these things have been dry fit to the hull and need tweaking. The main bridge structure seems a little awkward to form as the lower is sort of an oblong shape and the upper is rounded edge squareish and then polygoned back aft. This was all designed as one piece and is a bit difficult to form correctly. The piece shown in the pics is prototype 2. I think I have it now and will build some formers for the maindeck area shape and the differant upper deck shape. The various flak decks seemed kinda fun but the kits rails didn't quite fit without a struggle. I researched some pics and some of the prototype ships and 1st of thier class ships seemed to have canvas wrapped rails in some of the platforms. Anyways thats it for now.....
Small progress continued... the fwd stack still needs a couple/three steam vent pipes, the little goal post topped things and the dual double opened end ones that are a standard on Japanese ships.
Finished the base of the bridge. The white markings on the main deck and the underside of the top bridge was used as a template to build a laminated 1mm thick "former" to help the base retain its unique shape. Still have more to go but I thought this really worked out nice. A note to keep in mind when enlargeing kits is sometimes the bigger structures need re-inforcing to maintain thier shapes.
A few things done today. Finished the bridge, and the fwd stack assembly less the screen cap. Haven't decided on how to do that yet. Usually a card grid works well but I'm experimenting with a wire version.
Absolutely precise, clean and crisp work, Ted! 
Each photo reveals yet another view of a superb piece of work. The stack piping came out brilliantly, as did everything else you posted tonight! :shock:
Looking forward to more photos when you can.
Cheers!
Jim
Each photo reveals yet another view of a superb piece of work. The stack piping came out brilliantly, as did everything else you posted tonight! :shock:
Looking forward to more photos when you can.
Cheers!
Jim
Great as always Ted did you emboss the ammo lockers or is it just good shading especially like the cannon.
barry
barry
Finally finished "A" turret. There isn't much to it but it took 2 runs and alot of planning and simplifing. These turrets had lots of grab holds, rails and stuff. Most of the "3D" like effects are shading done in a bitmap editor. I did cut out a few actual solid things to give it a more tangible 3D effect where needed. The blast bags are tissue paper painted white. I haven't had this happen yet but I read an article that says toilet paper was designed to breakdown and might just dissolve so use tissue paper instead. I may go back and drill the plastic .6mm barrels out and add the doors/hatchs to the aft part but we'll see.
Well, finally really finally finished "A" turret. I couldn't rest until it was just right. The hatches on the rear of the turret needed added and I drilled out the muzzles using a pin vise and a #80 drill bit, and a set of plastic magnifying binocs called optivisor. Years ago when building 1/76 scale tanks I used to drill out the scale 8mm/30 cals using a 30 gauge insulin needle and no optic asssist, well time marches on, and thank the stars there are such things out there to stave off failing vision :!:
Excellent work, Ted!
The added details enhanced what was already a great gun, but I know what you mean.
I also need to use optical assistance these days, unfortunately even for just cutting out large parts! Ah, the fun of getting old! I hear the eyes reverse their trend as you get older...but I think that only means the ability to focus on things in the distance, not the problem at seeing things up close, drat! :lol:
Keep at it, my friend, and more photos when you can.
Cheers!
Jim
The added details enhanced what was already a great gun, but I know what you mean.
I also need to use optical assistance these days, unfortunately even for just cutting out large parts!
Ah, the fun of getting old! I hear the eyes reverse their trend as you get older...but I think that only means the ability to focus on things in the distance, not the problem at seeing things up close, drat! :lol: Keep at it, my friend, and more photos when you can.
Cheers!
Jim
Almost finished a couple things last night, the searchlite platform still needs a ladder. I've been watching Michael's build of the Oregon and his ideas are getting me going for rails ladders and such, thanks Michael.