Tamiya 1/350 Bismarck

I took this project on for a friend who has a terminal illness as he no longer has the ability to make it. The Tamiya ship kits are very nice fitting but very light on detail. I enjoyed building this but when I compare it to the two 1/200 Bismarck’s I own, there is a significant amount of detail that Tamiya just doesn’t have. I’ve portrayed the ship at the beginning of Operation Rheinubung. I also used a cheap chinese upgrade kit that had photo etch , brass barrels, wood deck, anchor chains and swastika masking. It was a surprisingly good set and I would look to use them again for other ships in same scale. The rigging was added to portray the impression of some rigging rather than anything accurate. Not something I do very much of but went the extra mile on this one.
Colours used were Tamiya XF54 Dark Sea Grey for the hull, XF83 Medium Sea Grey 2 for the superstructure and XF24 Dark Grey for all the dark bits.
If you’re looking for a simple kit to make, I think the Tamiya ship kits are a lot of fun. If you want something a bit more serious with detail, I think the Trumpeter kits are significantly better in this scale.








cheers

BT

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Absolutely gorgeous! And very kind of you to build this for your friend, it’ll certainly lift his spirits!

Nice job on this ship. When you say wooden decks in the AM set, are they wood or wood printed decals? The deck looks great.

Thanks for the comments guys. The deck is the typical self adhesive wood veneer that you get from any of the AM sets with laser etching to show planks. I’m not sure what wood printed decals are…

Gofer Racing and AK Interactive are the only wood grain decals I know of. Just asking because I’m not a model ship builder.

I can see what you mean about the detail, but you’ve worked it up into a really nice model. Has a “museum display” quality to it.

Can you share what the aftermarket set you found was, or where to look? Thanks!

I came across this when searching for photo etch. It was great value.

Bismarck Upgrade set

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