Scharnhorst Battleship Turret B -- Takom 1/72
Hey everyone.
My son Kai (he's 12) and I (much older) just completed work on this really cool and fun to build and paint 1/72 kit from Takom of the Scharnhorst Battleship Turret B.
Although technically a battle cruiser I think, many still think of it as a battleship. In any case, I won't speak to the short history of the vessel as you can spend hours going over it on wikipedia and the like.
I got it for Christmas as I asked my wife for "something different" than my usual tanks and beer. It sat there for awhile as I of course pursued the other two. 😃 But one day my son Kai asked when I was going to make it as he had built and helped paint a model with me already, so we decided to do it together.
This was his first model...
Anyway, I thought this would be an excellent kit for him to work with me on as it was relatively simple to build. Yah, there's not much to it really. A few seam lines. The kit goes together easily and a few small issues, but none worth mentioning. He did most of the test fitting and glueing. I did most of the cutting and sanding. 🤬
We decided on the tougher paint scheme with the wave. Yah, I had to do that freehand with really no good way to mask it with all the contours. I think it came out pretty well freehand, but then again I wasn't going to try to correct it if it was wrong.
I did some homework and saw that the color of the turret was really almost white with dark grey for the wave. Painting white always has its challenges. I started with a grey primer and then went to "mottle" the base with dark grey/black to begin the weathering process. I always to to get most of my weathering done in the early parts of my projects as I'm not very good with washes and such. Then I moved to start adding my white tones with sky grey, etc. The yellow was typical XF-64 Dark Yellow with a little yellow added in the mix. These were done as glazes with very thin paint.
Deck was a few shades of tan, beige and then multiple oils used to give it some life.
I had Kai do much of the weathering. We used a grey filter first. Then some blue/grey panel line pin washes. he liked that. Then I had him do some streaking here and there with white oil paints. A darker pin wash. Then we did some light chipping in some places for some character. Nothing over the top.
We really had fun with it and a great project for a new modeler I think. I did a little post shading with some heavily thinned dark grey paint.
Good kit. Really cool to put on a book shelf or something in an office. Kai has it on his desk.
Hope you enjoy it like we did.
Cheers. --Graeme
Excellent weathering. Hope your son had fun helping with this project.
Those Takom turrets do look fun. And a definite change of pace.
Yah a nice change of pace. There a few of them. Super simple. Like maybe 4-5 hrs of building at most.
This looks amazing, Graeme @graemestreet
And what more to wish than building this exclusive kit together with your son.
Looking at your son's first build, he definitely has a lot of skills.
Thanks @johnb. It’s been really fun sharing my hobby with one of my boys. I have 3 boys actually. He’s the only one to really show an interest. The others just think I’m a big kid with toys. Ha.
Good for Kai Graeme, seems like he is following his dad well.
Simon.
Thanks @superfreak. He and I are modeling weekly now. He’s really begun to like it. Hard to believe in my profile pick he was just 5 or 6. Kids make time fly.
Interesting model, Graeme, and good news that at least one of your sons is getting into the hobby with a little help from his Dad.
Excellent result, Graeme! Congratulations to your son, too!
Wow! I saw the scale comparison photo in your recent Corsair post. Even in 1/72 this dwarfed the 1/48 F4U. Sometimes it is hard to comprehend the scale of these big ships from photos. Your son will have a great start on the hobby wherever it takes him, ships, aircraft, armor or dare I say it model railroading. The lessons learned can be applied. And I am learning from these posts too. Thanks for the detailed explanations of the painting process.