Airfix 1/600 Bismarck becomes Tirpitz....and then disappears!

[spanner570]

Quite right Dave.
Revell had the good sense to re-tool their Bismarck, and what a terrific job they did on her!

Allen. I crack a can and my eye focus knows no bounds!

On with the build.....

Superstructure all stuck together.







To eliminate any chance of paint removal through masking, I always paint boot toppings and similar long lines, freehand using a well loaded flat headed paintbrush. Luckily, there is a very feint raised line for the top of the boot topping, (The black line above the waterline) so I was able to brush up to this.

As the ship will be waterline, I will be hacking off the hull below this mark before starting the painting.


This is as far as I dared to go before painting the ship, because adding any smaller 'Bits' would make it a very difficult exercise.
Unfortunately, I got that carried away from here on that I forgot to take progress pictures, so things now become a bit disjointed and even missing altogether. For this, I apologize in advance.

I will use the ritted word to try and explain the missing stages.

Your Servant,
Kapitan Hans Meyer

 

[boatman]

HI 570 VERY nice build but im cryin in my boots that u r goin to cut the bottom off the hull off cant u do a deeper sea scape ?
chrisb

 

[BattleshipBob]

Dear Herr Meyer

Das is a wonderbar job of a kaput kit

Mr Gruntfuttuck, twice removed

 

[spanner570]

Thanks to Chris and Herr Gruntfuttuck.

Chris. she won't be at sea....... So surgery it has to be, sorry. Just squint and all will be tickety boo!

Twice Removed, thank you too for your much valued observation.

Ron

 

[JR]

Greeting 570 .

As there will be no room for new crew members from here I shall say , good luck ," we " your enemy and I will be watching.
Yours 453 and a certain friend.

 

[Tim Marlow]

Greeting 570 .

As there will be no room for new crew members from here I shall say , good luck ," we " your enemy and I will be watching.
Yours 453 and a certain friend.

You are just parroting platitudes again aren’t you John

 

[JR]

You are just parroting platitudes again aren’t you John

You've got it in one Tim

 

[spanner570]

Greeting 570 .

As there will be no room for new crew members from here I shall say , good luck ," we " your enemy and I will be watching.
Yours 453 and a certain friend.

453, if that cross billed, hook nosed, scabby feathered, squawking, flee ridden, bad tempered, with the I.Q of a backward clam excuse for what is usually a superb example of a colourful, friendly and intelligent creature comes within range of my ship, I will send a launch load of hairy a***d Marines to intercept it - And these guys haven't had a 'Bird' in quite a while!

Be afraid, very afraid for the future well being of your 'Friend'

Yours
Bootiful Bernard Matthews (Dec.) AKA 570

Turkey and Parrot stuffer extraordinaire.

 

[spanner570]

As I wrote earlier, the build from now on is all to pot due to there being no stage pictures in any sort of order. I'll have to 'Borrow' a few from my previous build of this kit.

So please bear with me.....
Here's my little £10 grinder thingy working on the hull.

Images from a previous build of this same kit. I've done the same with this current construction. The only difference being, the subject of this thread, as can be seen earlier, is far less advanced than in these photos.

Sorry Chris, it just had to be done and no animals were hurt during this exercise.




Now I have a waterline ship, I can start to paint her.

Jeez, I'm confused and I'm building the thing!

Cheers.
Ron

 

[boatman]

453, if that cross billed, hook nosed, scabby feathered, squawking, flee ridden, bad tempered, with the I.Q of a backward clam excuse for what is usually a superb example of a colourful, friendly and intelligent creature comes within range of my ship, I will send a launch load of hairy a***d Marines to intercept it - And these guys haven't had a 'Bird' in quite a while!

Be afraid, very afraid for the future well being of your 'Friend'

Yours
Bootiful Bernard Matthews (Dec.) AKA 570

Turkey and Parrot stuffer extraordinaire.

WELL 570 from what i read i gather you are not that fond of J/R 's freind Polly then an then some LOL

an cuttin that hull i wanted to cry im sure that ship felt pain as i sure did an i was lookin through my fingers BOO HOO LOL
chrisb

 

[BattleshipBob]

Dear Mr Matthews

With your expertise in all things chicken, perhaps you could stuff said Polly, nothing like getting stuffed!

 

[boatman]

Dear Mr Matthews

With your expertise in all things chicken, perhaps you could stuff said Polly, nothing like getting stuffed!

OH YES Bobm8 570 would love to have that polly stuffed an mounted afer what it did in 570's hat an he put it on not knowin what polly had done so he kicked polly an his freind J/R OFF his sub crew or was it a ship as cant remember but polly said he'd do it again if the chance came up LOL

 

[BattleshipBob]

OH YES Bobm8 570 would love to have that polly stuffed an mounted afer what it did in 570's hat an he put it on not knowin what polly had done so he kicked polly an his freind J/R OFF his sub crew or was it a ship as cant remember but polly said he'd do it again if the chance came up LOL

Nice bit of sage an onion, lovely

 

[boatman]

Nice bit of sage an onion, lovely

Bob says nice bit of sage an onion an how about added parrot LOL

 

[spanner570]

Good stuff chaps!
I wrote at the start of this thread that this would be a 'Quicky' and also warned of a lack of pictures and any sort of co-ordination. For all this, I offer my sincere apalogys!
So here we are at more or less the finished model.

Although a Bismarck kit, Tirpitz differed slightly from Bismarck. More on this later....

This thread has been more of a painting exercise, than the actual build, hence the use of a very poor and therefore cheap kit. so please ignore the build quality. That was never my aim.....

Brush painted as usual, and as with all my camo. work, I marked out the pattern with a pencil. I've tried to get the sides of the hull summat like it was in reality, but the rest I just marked out what looked alright. I don't think any photos exist of Tirpitz's deck pattern, hence my heduficated gess!

You might remember the earlier pictures of just the completed bare superstructure. Leaving all the guns, boats, etc. off made the initial camouflage painting a lot easier. I added all the bits after and filled in the relevant paint detail to ensured a continuity in the pattern.

I have painted her as she was camouflaged when in Faettenfjorden, late June 1942.

I've given, what was a very difficult exercise, my best shot.

So here she is. Brush painted with those wonderful diddy Airfix starter pack paint tubs. Minimum rigging done with ezeeline.


These first images are of Tirpitz all squeeky clean.









Here the decks have been weathered a tad.....









This photo shows her scruffed up a bit to take away the harshness of the camouflage against any foliage.....



Because she was moored close to the shore of the Fjord on her port side, only her starboard side was camouflaged. Here's my guess at the sparse 'Hit and Miss' landward side.....




The 'Vanishing act'

Using watercolours, I painted a bit of imaginary, June Nordic shoreline on some card and placed this behind the ship. I wanted some reflections, so I used is a bit of gloss varnished slate to represent the very still waters of Faettenfjorden.
After various attempts, this is the background I've settled on.





There you go. It's been an enjoyable challenge.

I will post a few pictures of my attempt at the Bismarck / Tirpitz alterations later in this thread.

Once again, sorry for the rather poor and quick presentation. Next time I will remember to take progress pickies!

Thank you for your support during this whizz bang production for Channel S.M.

I will post more images over in 'Ships completed' asap.

Cheers all.
Ron

 

[boatman]

VERY NICELY done 570 I love the cammo an your nice bit of trees all painted an fitted into the background its easy to see how she could blend in whith the background brilliant work my good freind
Chrisb

 

[spanner570]

Thanks Chris.
I'm chuffed you approve.
It was Ian M who first pointed out this crazy, yet genuine camouflage to me a fair time ago. It has stuck in my mind ever since. I just knew I would have to have a crack at it sooner or later...And I'm now mighty glad to have it behind me!

Cheers my mate...
Ron

 

[minitnkr]

Very, very cool.

 

[Valeron]

Excellent work. Camouflage in action

Mike

 

[Allen Dewire]

Well Ron, a quickie and I'd say that the finish is tighter than a duck's butt. Really nice camo and shows just what it can do on anything to conceal it. Great pics too Sir!!!

Prost
Allen