MikroMir's HMS SSBN Resolution

Top deck is a poor fit, but I think I might have managed to get it on. The sail isn't glued on here. 

Photos seem to show, maybe a hard edge with even a gap here, but I went with putty. Difficult to evaluate the result, hard to see with the eyes imo. 

I think this is very good. Should be as smooth as I can get it I think. The diving planes is to be attached around the two bumps. 

I used sprue goo to hide the seams, and I rescribed some panel lines. Must clean up the rest of the excessive sprue goo later. 

Starting to look like a submarine. 🙂 The sail still isn't glued on, and is tilted to the side abit, an easy fix. 

I filled in two pairs of small holes on the deck. Never found out what they might be, if anything. 

Should be fun later on, as I have plenty of 1:350 sub kits in my stash. 🙂 

Oh, joy, a new camera. TZ100. A 1" sensor, and lots of other interesting stuff. Presumably lots of comprimises, being a compact camera. 

Having spent this much time on the hull, I should probably try make this seamless, but I've been fiddling way too much with this. What you are looking at, are two large hull parts glued together and there is a seam just below the dive planes, going down, and then to the right towards where the hull shape separates into a top and bottom part. 

I should have added a gloss coat before I airbrushed on a thin mix of gold + copper, but I'll do that maybe some other project. I did airbrush on a layer of glossy black primer first. I wonder if I should try make gentle swipes with 3000 grit sandpaper, to try create a pattern on the shiny blades. 

Paint: Vallejo Air Rubber 50% + Vallejo Air Black 50%. Right click and open in new tab, for a somewhat larger image.
I could swear I covered the entire model with paint, but maybe it looks more glossy at the rear because the paint got wet (I did try to airbrush on thin layers of paint). Otherwise I am very happy with this paintwork. I must take care to add a gloss coat to preserve the paintwork, and without any dust. 

When I got the kit in the mail, the hull had a large chunk cracked off, and althought I tried to fix the seamlines, I didn't manage to do it 100%. I'll be more careful with some later project. Update: Hrm, I think I should use some putty and fill in the not-that-great looking panel lines at the front and re-paint the front. Simple and easy enough. 

I have airbrushed on white, and will apply a 1mm strip of masking tape, which is the thinnest one I have, and I will airbrush on the mix of black, then peel off the masking tape. 🙂 I can't be assed to fiddle with two strips of masking tape to run in parallell. I airbrushed on Vallejo Air White, straight on, and it was sort of ok, but I think I should have thinned it a little bit. I have never seen the needle this dirty when cleaning my airbrush. Edit: Hrm, looks like I forgot the area behind the diving planes at the rear. 

A trick for checking how horizontal your water line is, when applying the masking tape, is to go vertical and turn the long line, into a short line when looking close up from one end to the other. Any deviation is more easily seen that way. And any small deviation, should be much less noticeable when looking at the model from the side. Hrm, the far end looks off (fixed). 

Hrm, I eh guess I will have to airbrush some more black over the white waterline, to make the line thinner. :| I had great fun airbrushing on the black mix here, perfect result. I sort of feel a little bad having to add a gloss coat to this. 

I halved the width, but still too wide perhaps. Hrm. Btw, I have a big pack of A3 copy paper that I use for the desk, which is replaced every so often. 

ADDED: Avoid using Humbrol Clear! -- I have airbrushed on the first layer of gloss coat here, using Humbrol Clear (acrylic). I made sure to not airbrush the entire model in one go, but I did chose to add gloss coat onto the top side, in case I wanted to add a pin wash before I added the rest of the gloss coat to the middle part of the model. Btw, I think I've learned that if the underlying paintjob is smooth, the gloss coat lays on nicely, without a need for putting it on wet like I used to, when I ended up with a more bumpy surface after airbrushing on primer paint in particular. These days 🙂 all my layers of primer are super smooth after sifting the paint, and also properly thinning the paint.

If you missed me finishing my other sub model, here's the album: MikroMir's Nautilus submarine in 1:350 scale | Album by Treehugger (1:350) 

Decals are nice, crisp and nice looking; and they also loosen from the paper very quickly when dipped in water. Unclear what the real level markers look like, but I did my best. Best to start with the 17 marker, just above the waterline, and then position every other decal in level with the two decals placed near the forward diving planes. Somehow, it all matches up nicely which is nice. 🙂 I tried to work with super thin self adhesive metal foil and flipped it once to make a double layer. I don't yet know if if I can correct the tear that I got after I tried to place a whole piece of decal on the metal foil and also bending it at the center to cover both sides of the foil. 

I know I can airbrush on a gloss coat, covering only half the model at a time, but I try to do as much as I can in one sitting, and then I have to find alternate ways to place the models down for drying. I try to keep the models away from the spray booth intake when drying and when the spray booth vents is still pulling air.

I have airbrushed on Humbrol Clear with my custom 0.5 needle Iwata Eclipse airbrush, and I think I got little better at this. Still using a psi of about 8.

I suspect that Humbrol Clear is not made for thicker layers, because I saw cracks the last time, and the primer underneath had dried for a good while. Perhaps the cracks may appear if doing two layers in one sitting. A mystery of the slight cracking pattern that is unsolved.

I want to try get a piano laquer finish on this submarine. I did the same with the Kursk sub, but this time I want to use fewer layers of gloss coat. Trick is to work with a smooth surface, and then I make sure to sort of work wet-in-wet with the airbrush. 

I used to glue on every antenna on the sub models, but I think that doesn't look good. I wish I knew more about what antennas would plausibly be used together, so I just winged it here. Need to fix the scratch there in a spot. 

Although I was bummed out seeing my Humbrol Clear (gloss coat) ending up with cracking patterns all over, I have sanded and added a couple more gloss coats, hopefully I can fix this. Some more work needed to finish this model.