I felt like I actually needed to finish something. So I broke out the Bronco 1/350 Seawolf for a breather. This is ultimately more of a painting exercise given the simplicity of a modern sub.
You can't screw up a modern sub that much, but fit was not great. Some filler was needed around the conning tower and some of the fins.
I chose to build this as the Connecticut, as I was able to find some drydock photos proving this was in an all black scheme. I used some reference photos of the Jimmy Carter (not quite the same boat, but close).
The lower hull got a coat of Tamiya XF-69 NATO black, and then streaks of a light gray (I think it was XF-19) sprayed along the edge of a index card.
Very dilute XF-69 was then sprayed back over the hull leaving this somewhat translucent to show the streaking.
The hull plating/streaking isn't seen in photos around the sonar dome/panels, so these were brush painted back to straight XF-69. I normally airbrush almost everything, but the border wasn't very discrete, making masking hard.
The "boot strip" was then masked to paint the upper color.
This was then painted a base of Tamiya XF-85 Rubber Black, before using the "salt method" to add some variation in the color. Water was sprayed on...
Salt was then loosely sprinkled and allowed to dry. Light gray was then light sprayed in a patchy manner. Some "plating effect" was also added to the conning tower at this time.
The salt was rubbed off and diluted XF-85 used to lightly overcoat this now. The conning tower was overcoated with XF-69 to keep tonal variations up.
The final effect of the two blacks...
The front sonar dome was then masked. I find it helpful to use a circle gauge to be sure this is kept "true".
And this was sprayed Tamiya XF-1 Flat Black.
The screw was sprayed "brass" first, then misted with some copper to get a more realistic look...
The light gray/dark gray of the scopes/antenna camouflage are supplied as decals, but these don't really fit at all. So I hand painted them.
Then gloss coat and decals...
And then the final flat coat. I decided to leave this as a fresh out of the dry dock build. Partly because I couldn't find good reference for how this black weathered. Partly because I was keeping this build simple.
At some point with all my final builds, I'll put this in a well lit photo tent, get the camera on a tripod, and take some well exposed, balanced photos. But that day has not yet been today, so I'll leave this thread here for now.