Small scale battleships

**Robert Woolley** · #1 12-15-2015, 04:25 AM

Hi all, here are two little battleships. They are about 1/800 scale. I have so many models on the go, and never finish anything. I decided to make these and finish them. I am very happy with the results.
The white one is an Oliver Bizer model. It resembles very closely the battleship Potemkin. I actually started this a couple of years ago, and cant remember why I stopped making it, as I was so close to finishing it. I made the masts myself to more closely match those on the Potemkin. I also added cranes for the anchors. Otherwise it is as Mr Bizer designed it.
The grey one is the battleship Mikasa. I have 1/200 and 1/400 Mikasas as works in progress. This one was a joy to make. It took only a few hours over a couple of days to make. It is a free download from Papercraft Etsutan. The download is a very basic black and white model as you can see below. The picture is from the website.

I used Gimp to colour it and I laminated a few parts here and there to give it a more 3D effect. I also made the gun barrels and masts differently. The ventilators were borrowed from the Potemkin.
My wife, who visited the real Mikasa with me, liked it, and said it looked just like what she remembers, which was a nice compliment.
There are several other battleships and cruisers of the Japanese navy available. I plan to see what I can do with them in the future.

Robert

**John Dell** · #2 12-15-2015, 05:58 AM

Wow! Very nice work! I ‘ve always been interested in pre-dreadnaught battleships. I look forward to seeing more.

**chicharrero** · #3 12-15-2015, 07:02 AM

Pretty little ships, friend.
A clean job

**georgerutherford1861** · #4 12-15-2015, 08:16 AM

Oh very nice! This is about the scale and level of detail that could hold my attention through an entire build.

Doug

**elliott** · #5 12-15-2015, 06:38 PM

Great job in such a small scale. Wish I could work in small scales like that. Your work is quite good. Have you considered doing build threads on your in work Mikasas? We like to watch models as they go together.

**Robert Woolley** · #6 12-16-2015, 12:32 AM

Thanks for the interest in these little models.

Quote:

Originally Posted by elliott

Great job in such a small scale. Wish I could work in small scales like that. Your work is quite good. Have you considered doing build threads on your in work Mikasas? We like to watch models as they go together.

I've done build threads for both the JSC and Oriel Mikasas. I changed my user name to my real name recently. It used to be Hikokibert. You may have seen them under that name.

Robert

**elliott** · #7 12-16-2015, 07:41 AM

Ah, now it makes sense. I thought we'd had threads on the Mikasa, just hadn't tracked them down yet. No wonder your small battleships look so good!

**Don Boose** · #8 12-16-2015, 08:33 AM

These are beautiful little battleships, Robert. Exactly the right amount of detail for the scale.

I have enjoyed your previous builds and admire your skill and knowledge of ship history and architecture. I look forward to seeing more.

As one who lived for many (13+) years in Northeast Asia, including Japan 1987-90 (and who has served with Australian, British, and New Zealand military and naval personnel), I find it interesting that you have visited Mikasa and that you used to go by "Airplane Bert." Do you have some airplane models to show us?

Don

**LouCoatney** · #9 12-16-2015, 10:36 AM

Well done, Robert!

**Robert Woolley** · #10 12-16-2015, 10:26 PM

Thanks Don and Lou.
Don, I am happy someone figured out what Hikokibert meant. My dad used to call me Bert when I was a kid. I have always loved machines. I started drawing them as soon as I could hold a pen. My mum still has a collection of my drawings and I seemed to split my time pretty evenly between planes, battleships, sailing ships and earth moving equipment. May dad told me of Trafalgar and sinking the Bismark even before I started school, so I have always had an interest in naval history. But as time went on I seemed more drawn to planes till that became my main love. I still liked ships but making models of planes and collecting books and reading about them dominated.
I lived in Japan for a few years from 1990, just as you were leaving. Back then it was a modelers paradise, much more so than these days. I discovered the 1/700 waterline series and my interest in ships started to grow. I then got into flying models in the early 2000s, once again while living in Japan. Stick and tissue models became a passion until I moved on to radio control a few years ago.
It got to a point where it was all becoming too expensive, when I happily rediscovered paper modeling. It was the pre-dreadnoughts that were available that caught my attention. I like naval history, as I mentioned, and I found researching them a fascinating pastime. When a ship has a story I get passionate about building it, and trying to get it right. The Russo-Japanese war has provided me with such rich and interesting, and tragic stories to accompany my modeling.
So most of my paper modeling has been ships, but I have done, and enjoyed, a bit of everything in the paper modeling universe. I have made several paper aircraft, but I tend to give them to the young son of a work mate. He likes planes and I am happy to try and fuel the passion. However I don't have many pictures of them. The few I have kept I have posted in the forums here.

Robert