After some encouragement I stopped hiding from my submersible and finished it off - I think it's the first plastic kit I've finished in several years (barring some wee model railway bits).
(click for big)
This is the Bandai Exploring Lab 1/48 kit of the Japanese deep submergence vehicle Shinkai 6500, as operated by JAMSTEC. I'd intended this to be a "light relief" build but it ended up taking about a month on and off.
I'd thoroughly recommend the kit, it's nicely done and my only complaint would be that the decals are a bit thick. I built it out of the box apart from adding cabling and hydraulic lines, wire grab handles, opening some lift eyes, and rebuilding the very coarse sample baskets to get a better sense of scale. The last task was probably 25% of the entire build time, and 75% of the frustration encountered, but I'm glad I did it.
I painted the bodywork with Tamiya rattle cans and polished the paint with their compounds. The details are brush painted, mostly with GW acrylics, and the panel lines and pin washes are from MIG.
I've probably forgotten to do something, but the easiest way to find out what that might be is to claim it finished and let you lot point it out
To which end comments and suggestions much appreciated, and thanks to everyone who offered encouragement while I was building.Cheers,
Will
Edited by Will Vale, 16 April 2012 - 01:09 AM.
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