Thomo's Hole

I had a spare Navwar Admiral Gorshkov. I also wasn’t sure what approach to take with the sea bases and painting the 1/3000th ships, it has been a while and my painting techniques have been changing over that period. I recently painted 1/6000th scale ships and wondered if I could apply the same principles to the 1/3000th. I also was wondering how to do deal with the sea base as these ships do not have a sea base under them.

So many questions. The solution? A prototype or as we like to consider it now, the flashiest fridge magnet Thomo has ever made.

I had already glued the model to the plastic base I am trying currently, and yes, I over ordered when I put that Navwar order in before. I then undercoated in white. Next step was painting the base Vallejo Prussian Blue (a step I will drop next time). I then painting Citadel’s old Regal Blue and used a very diluted Goblin Green across that. A very diluted Ice Blue was then washed across the base followed by some white when the blue was still wet.

I should note at this point as well that I had tried using Vallejo’s Water Effects to model a sea base – mucking around with another carrier surplus to needs. In the words of twitter – #fail!

The flight deck was then painted. I used two lighter shades than appeared in the photographs I had seen of the vessel as I am fairly sure they will darken a little more once the varnishing is done.

The next step was to take a white paint pen and paint the deck markings on. These are a little dodgy but I am getting used to the pen and learning a little patience – like wait for it to dry, shake it frequently and be happy when you need to redraw a line three times to get the white sufficiently opaque on the model.

Superstructure was painted and washed in black ink. It was then dry (really wet) brushed with a very light grey.

The missile silos were also touched up at this point.

The last step was the black on the funnel top. Actually the detail on this model is a bit odd at the top of the superstructure but what the heck, it is a wargame model after all.

A touch up of a couple of colours and then some white added to the wash around the bow.

Voila! The Frank Gorshin … sorry, Admiral Gorshkov is ready for the table.

I think next time I will use a lighter more fluorescent green on the sea base.

Hopefully I will get some time tomorrow to get out to Changi Naval Base and have a look at some ships. I’ll leave you with a picture of the real Admiral Gorshkov.