--Originally posted 2/15/08--


Appended below will be our best info on simulating the appearance of wood/deck planking without need for any actual wood or even (in the extreme case) any underlying texture(s): planking, "v"-groove, siding, etc.. Beginning with results of no less than seven tests, involving application to the flight deck of my Nichimo 1/500 Hiryu, shown above.

Although that mold actually did offer some very fine (raised) planking texture, which definitely can aid in establishing the pattern and "depth" evocative of wood, and especially a planked deck, the additional objective to simulate an IJN flight deck of "Ancient Pine" (Bei Matsu) - in appearance among the lightest/brightest of ship decks - and especially as simulated over so (relatively) large a contiguous area, certainly represented one of if not the most challenging applications of the technique ("Dissolving Wash") which was used. Thus, details of all seven trials are presented (below) as demonstrative/instructive - even in (6) failures, in varying degree.

Any reader(s) not interested in reviewing all these details - but simply skipping to the "low down" on precisely how to paint something like the above - and/or with low tolerance for long sagas of The Agony of Defeat and The Tenacity to Succeed in the End - may just skim the first post, sufficient to get the general idea, and then (as our English friends would say) "jogg on" to the end of the second post, to note exact specifications - paint colors, solvents, drying times, etc. - which produced the specific result shown above.

Cheers,

-Matty