HMS Illustrious 1:400 kit rebuild

T16S · HMS Illustrious 1:400 kit rebuild

This is Illustrious- which has been living in the loft for years. First built with my son when he was about 7- he is now 29! Building kits with him eventually paid dividends because he now makes his living making figures for Games Workshop. Over Christmas I rebuilt the kit with added deck edges, sunken side deck wells and a major restructure of the island bridge. Plus scratch built Fulmar fighters to replace the Martlets that came with the kit. Brass etch railings from Toms Modelworks as usual. With a bit of work the Swordfish can be made to look reasonable and I’ve added torpedoes as well. So we have a Fulmar just leaving the catapult and another three ready to go. One Fulmar with the wings folded and five Swordfish with torpedoes. Another Swordfish with folded wings on the rear deck lift. With only 12 aircraft the deck looks pretty crowded and this shows how limited deck space was on a carrier like this. They must have moved aircraft pretty fast up and down the lifts from the hangar and we know that outriggers were used to increase the deck parking capacity. The total air group was around 40 and having all of them on deck at once must have been an aircraft version of sardines.
If expense was no object a replacement bridge in resin and aircraft- both Fulmars and Swordfish can be bought from WEM. They also do a brass etch fret for the ship with a lot of nice details. The kit OOB is very basic and the bow doesn’t fit together well- something I had to correct. The side deck edge wells are placed too high and the bridge and funnel is frankly is a joke- wrong shape and very crudely detailed. I also made new catcher net frames on the deck edges that stopped people falling in the sea if they fell of the deck. I used stretched nylon stocking to simulate the netting.
Though no longer made since Heller went bust there are plenty of these kits available on ebay and also the carrier Collossus/Aromanche. If Airfix got the Heller moulds- someone must surely have them- we might yet see it reissued under their branding.

Taking on board Remy’s comments about my previous models I have weathered this one quite extensively and also dirtied up the after deck where tyre marks from landing aircraft would have left traces. So this is a dirty and rusty Illustrious!

Cheers Stuart

Click to see full size image

Ratch

Looks great Stu

When does that configuration date from

T16S

Hi Ratch,
thanks for the comment- I thought to do the ship in early camouflage and with an early air group- hence the Fulmars. So around early 1941-2 date. By 1943 she probably carried Martlets but possibly in between Sea Hurricanes as well as Fulmars. She got heavily bombed in the Med and went to the USA for repair- took about 11 heavy Stuka hits I think- and nearly sank. Her air combat patrol got caught napping because they were busily downing Itie bombers when the Stukas turned up. Only the armoured deck saved the ship- and even this was pierced by some of the bombs.
cheers Stuart

orionv

Ayup Stu
Bravo for this superb aircraft carrier,i love this sort of camo

The rust effect and weathering is well.The flying deck too.There is still some effect missing but it is really good

.But where is the crew ?It is a ghost ship?Your aircrafts are superbs and very convincing

The Illustrious was a beautiful ship...Bravo again.
The Hood s building goes on but there are a lot of work,i put very soon on the forum news photos that will surprise you...

Amitiés Rémy

daniel7891

That looks excellent Stuart. The weathering is excellent

T16S

Thanks for the comments guys- very encouraging. I even seem to have got Remy's approval- high praise indeed- much appreciated- yet it seems I now have to put in a crew! Actually I had worried that this was what is needed- men arming aircraft etc. Oh well I shall have to buy some of those brass cutout figures from Toms Modelworks and curse when the carpet monster swallows hordes of them!
cheers Stuart

walrus

Hi Stuart

before adding crew- i think the aircraft camo looks incorrect- maybe the lighting, but it looks like you have used Dark Earth, which i don't think the FAA used

orionv

Oups ,walrus is rigth,the aircrafts camo is not correct...but whatever,the building is very good and the plane are scratch made ,an exploit ,very good...

It s a small mistake not very serious...

but wich can be seen by looking closely,well done walrus.
Go one Stu, you re on the way....

Amitiés Rémy

T16S

Doh!!!!! Okay what should the colour be you set of cleverclogs?
Groan Stuart

walrus

T16S

Okay- I hadn't seen the slate grey etc hidden in the big box by Walrus- ( I am getting on in years) so why does the kit instructions give khaki and green? I give up!
Double groan Stuart

ps Overcome by post Xmas boredom I've been building a Revell 21cm Morser 18 and now I'm starting a Graf Spee- I doubt it will match Remy's stunning effort but I'm tempted to do an identical diorama! Tugboat and all. Grrrrr...... Then some wiseacre- probably called walrus- will say the funnel is the wrong colour!

orionv

An airfix Graff spee or a Heller?

T16S

Hi Remy,
the graf Spee is a Heller I've had lying in its box largely unbuilt in the loft for about 20 years.
Walrus is right of course about the camouflage and it's all my fault for relying on the kit instructions- thanks Walrus. Yet there is a dilemma because I've found illustrations of Fulmars in green and light grey, green and dark grey and what may be dark grey and grey. See www.fleetairarmarchive.net/aircraft/Fulmar.htm Stupid thing is I'd already seen these illustrations before I painted the models with green and brown. Totally infuriating! I assume the same colour schemes were applied to the Swordfish- but then it never pays top assume anything.
cheers and thanks for the help
Stuart

T16S

To satisfy Walrus (and save my dented pride) I've repainted the aircraft with green and grey and I think they look much better. Thanks Walrus for pointing out this rather stupid error on my part.
cheers Stuart

ps and yes I know the decals aren't quite right but they are all I had- twenty years+ in age and they still worked- remarkable!

Ratch

The biz

feanor

Ayup T16s...

The Mutts Nuts !

daniel7891

Superb work