SPA Modeler

Airbrushed Gunze H327 Red on hull and rudder. Looks a lot better....



A better shot of the hull in different lighting...




I've decided to use 5-O Ocean Grey as she may have been painted at the end of July 1941 after the discontinued production of 5-D Dark Grey.
For all I care, she may have also been painted 5-S Sea Blue or 5-H Haze Grey. I went with my choice of using Tamiya XF-82 Ocean Grey 2.

Airbrushed Gunze H327 Red on hull and rudder. Looks a lot better....



A better shot of the hull in different lighting...




I've decided to use 5-O Ocean Grey as she may have been painted at the end of July 1941 after the discontinued production of 5-D Dark Grey.
For all I care, she may have also been painted 5-S Sea Blue or 5-H Haze Grey. I don't know. So I went with my choice of using Tamiya XF-82 Ocean Grey 2. Close enough.

Here's the sub deck using Tamiya XF-82 Ocean Grey 2...

I'm no expert on WW2 battleship colors but meh.... I'm happy with the color choice.

Better! Even a thin coat of flat red over the Tamiya Hull Red would make enough difference.

In the long run and end, it’s your build. Paint it as you desire.

I agree on the hull. After you mentioned the hull red, I looked and thought about it more and you are correct. It is IJN hull red. Once I started spraying Gunze Red, it all started to look better. Tamiya Hull Red did work extremely well as a basecoat to achieve the look I wanted.

Looks like I'm going to need to stop to HobbyTown in Clinton to stock up on XF-82 Ocean Grey 2. Only had the small bottle and not much left to finish the main top hull. Going to pick up the 23ml bottle this time.

Well crap! My HobbyTown didn’t have XF-82 Ocean Grey 2 in stock. Their Tamiya line only went up to XF-72…

I’ll make do with whatever much I have left in the bottle. Hopefully, I’ll have enough to at least get the main hull covered. Oh well….

Personally I’d go with German Gray XF-63. That is not too far off the 5-D Dark Gray, which is a very dark gray



Here are the 1941 colors paint chips

That is a great color chart! The reason I chose not to do 5-D Dark Grey is because it had issues with the color matching the Pacific ocean. 5-D was more suited for the Atlantic Fleet not the Pacific Fleet.

Too many variation in color what may have been in early 1941. If you think about it, that's a lot of paint color changes from pre-war, early 1941 to late 1941. Even after Pearl Harbor.

Minor updates... tops of turrents painted Insignia Red, anchors painted NATO Black to give it a worn look. I may apply a little tiny bit of rust weathering pastel later on once attached to the ship.

The turrets look good Tom!

Yes, I have read how the 5-D was found to be too dark to work effectively in the Pacific. But then you think about it and prevailing weather conditions and locations between the Atlantic and the Pacific. Most operations in the Atlantic were in the North and in the more temperate conditions there. In the Pacific, it was much more operations in the tropics and sub tropics and that area's associated conditions. Not to mention that 1941 was a year of experimentation and transition for the USN regarding paint schemes. In January 1941, the ships were light gray with bare wooden decks or mahogany stained flight decks on the carriers. Aircraft were just starting to repaint from the Yellow wings and Aluminum lacquer into the lower visibility sky camouflage overall light gray with white markings and fewer & smaller national insignia. That scheme was great in the air, but stood out sharply on the newly blue stained flight decks that appeared in mid 1941, along with all the darker new surface ship paint camouflage measure sure as Measure 2, so the new Blue Gray topside color was adopted, to include the bottom portions of folding wings that could be seen from above. The brass knew that war was coming soon and were doing what they could to improve readiness and effectiveness.