When all was complete, the Tamiya kit was an easy build. I was truly surprised at how well this kit was engineered and how well thought out were the instructions. The parts, however, were many and very small. Always had to work with micro tipped tweezers and a magnifying glass. It took a lot of patience, but only one trip to the floor to hunt down an escapee.

The panting of the model represents the April 1945 scheme, just before she was sunk. By that time the wooden decks were covered with grey flame-retardant paint. I used Tamiya Acrylic Neutral Grey XF-53 and Dark Grey XF-24, mixed about 50-50, to get a lighter “scale effect” grey. (This differed slightly from the instructions.)The wooden deck was painted with XF-53 mixed with a little bit of Wood Tan XF-55. The blast bags were not white during war time; they were canvas, so I painted them light tan. Nothing scientific about the mixing ratios; I mix, then apply a swatch to a piece of matboard and “look see”. The whole model was airbrushed in stages. Shadow detail was added using dark grey pastel chalk mixed with a drop of water, just enough to make it viscous. When it dries, only the chalk remains. I also used thinned down Model Master oils. Highlights were added using light grey and white pastels. When everything was done, a light coat of Model Masters Acrylic Flat was misted over the ship. This helped seal the decals.

The base is made up of two parts. The model is attached to a piece of smoked Plexiglas from underneath by two screws. The Plexi is attached to the wooden base (from Model Expo) with four brass decorative screws. This way, the whole thing can be disassembled for repairs or to affix the model to another base. The Plexi also acted as a handling base during the build.

The smoked Plexi was dulled, wet sanded, using 4x0 steel wool. This took out the shine, which was competing with the presentation of the model. I experimented with adding water using Liquitex, but it distracted from the model. I like the look of the dark Plexi better.