Colourful Ships

[Jagdtiger1]

Hi all,

 

I've been looking at my completed builds lately, and its ~80% grey, ~15% green and black and ~5% actual colour.

 

Its easy to find bright aircraft on the internet, but not really ships.

 

So what cheery and colourful 1/700 vessels can you all suggest to brighten up my shelves? Naturally, we all think of dazzle camo first, followed by disruptive camo. Aside from that, I can't really find anything else other than Italian Heavy cruisers and battleships, there's nothing truly unique out there.

 

Thanks,

 

James.

Edited July 27, 2022 by Jagdtiger1

[Adm Lord De Univers]

Yup WW1 dazzle offering would certainly inject some colour, but you also have mountbatten pink schemes, flotta schemes, an icebreaker or research Ship would give you red, victorian/Georgian era or liners black or some modern ones something godawfully colourful. There are various RN schemes that are predominantly blue, or something swirly like the Rodney. Tugs, auxiliaries, convoy vessel and cargo ships could come in a number of colours...

 

Depends on what type of ship you want to model, there's bound to be some unusual paint schemes to spice up the ol' display cabinet.

 

David

[Jagdtiger1]

30 minutes ago, Adm Lord De Univers said:

Yup WW1 dazzle offering would certainly inject some colour, but you also have mountbatten pink schemes, flotta schemes, an icebreaker or research Ship would give you red, victorian/Georgian era or liners black or some modern ones something godawfully colourful. There are various RN schemes that are predominantly blue, or something swirly like the Rodney. Tugs, auxiliaries, convoy vessel and cargo ships could come in a number of colours...

 

Depends on what type of ship you want to model, there's bound to be some unusual paint schemes to spice up the ol' display cabinet.

 

David

Thanks for all that David!

 

I was actually looking at soverign hobbies earlier, and completely glossed over mountbatten pink.

 

Honestly, apart from my core interest of IJN, I'll build anything that catches my interest. One of the things I've found is a lot of models of ships in these beautiful interwar colours only have models depicting them in service in ww2, and I am absolutely AWFUL at research and conversion. Practice makes perfect I guess...

 

James.

[TomTango]

If you are not tied to WW2 warships, and don't want to do modern freighters, then there is always racing yachts. They are almost always colourful and covered in sponsors logos., though maybe not something for 1:700.

Many merchantmen early in WW2 did not get full repaints into grey either and a wide range is out there in 1:700. You could also look at a hospital or aid ships, normally white with green markings along their side to mark them out as humanitarian vessels. Small vessels in coastal service (trawlers, drifters, etc) also often didn't get grey repaints.

I'm pretty new to ship models, but I'm surprised by the variety of options there is for more esoteric and colourful builds. I'm currently doing a WW2 merchant ship that still had her blue funnel and tan super structure.


 

Most of the merchant ships built interwar are variations on a fairly standard pattern, so don't be afraid of a bit of conversion and scratch build.

 

[Jagdtiger1]

15 minutes ago, TomTango said:

If you are not tied to WW2 warships, and don't want to do modern freighters, then there is always racing yachts. They are almost always colourful and covered in sponsors logos., though maybe not something for 1:700.

Many merchantmen early in WW2 did not get full repaints into grey either and a wide range is out there in 1:700. You could also look at a hospital or aid ships, normally white with green markings along their side to mark them out as humanitarian vessels. Small vessels in coastal service (trawlers, drifters, etc) also often didn't get grey repaints.

I'm pretty new to ship models, but I'm surprised by the variety of options there is for more esoteric and colourful builds. I'm currently doing a WW2 merchant ship that still had her blue funnel and tan super structure.


 

Most of the merchant ships built interwar are variations on a fairly standard pattern, so don't be afraid of a bit of conversion and scratch build.

 

Hi Tom,

 

Thanks for that.

 

I'm not too strictly bound to 1/700. I'm in the process of looking for somewhere else to live and I'd rather not lug around many 1/350 ships. God knows I've got enough in the stash!

 

I've actually been looking at IJN merchant ships in disruptive camos tonight, there's quite a few out there. Certainly more to cater to the hungry Japanese audience than us Brits!!

 

Out of interest, are you scratch building your merchantman, or converting from a specific kit?

Thanks,

 

James.

[TomTango]

I'm converting the Trumpeter liberty ship kit, the in progress thread is here :
 

 

If you're looking for an interesting vessel to do for an IJN merchant, you might want a look at this vessel as she had an interesting history, sunk in 1942, then raised and used by the IJN, sunk again in 1945, re-floated again and returned to her original owners. It would probably have to be a scratch build though  .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Talthybius_(1911)