The Ship Model Forum

Hi,

This is my first time here. I'm new to ship building but not to scale modeling. My wife just bought me the Trumpeter USS Nimitz 1/350 scale (it was an early birthday present, she was having trouble finding a spot in the house to hide it, so she gave it to me early! I love my wife!).

My interests are normally 1/12 cars (Tamiya & the new Trumpeter GT-40) as well as Canadian and British planes (WWII & others) but I do have a serious fascination with modern US aircraft carriers, hence the Nimitz.

I noticed that the kit doesn't come with detailed painting instructions. I'm wondering if anyone out there can point me in the right direction to find colour references?

Cheers
Luc

Hi,

Welcome aboard ! Let me offer the colorcoats of White Ensign Models to your attention. Go to their website and search for U.S Navy Haze Gray, Flight Deck Gray and Anti-fouling Red among their modern naval colors. The haze gray will go to the ship hull and island, the flight deck gray to the flight deck and the red to the bottom.
The airplanes and helos are light gull gray on the top and white on the bottom. On the other hand search for Kelly Quirk's Nimitz on this website. You will see a few good photos about the assemblied kit

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Non sibi sed patriae

Hi from Ray in CANADA....to start things off , and you in the right directions...here is my pet peeve for CV CVN builders...the raft canisters are NOT WHITE. !!!!! NEVER NEVER NEVER!!!!!. In photos, they look lighter because they are plastic incasements, rounded, and reflect the sun glare a bit, and should be painted the SAME hull gray as the rest of the ship. There. Said my piece. OH, and,
if you want a Photo Album on disc of the NIMITZ CVNs for references since you are shifting from cars and planes, contact me at stillmo@shaw.ca or go to www.stillmotionsphotographics.com , contact me later.... Ray in Canada. :0)

USN haze gray is FS 36270. If you're using MM, Testors calls it "Neutral Gray". Gunship gray is what you're looking for for the dark, horizontal deck surfaces. I think the flight deck is closer to Euro I gray to start out with, but it gets so weathered that you're pretty safe with any dark gray.

HTH, and good luck.

Too simple!

I'm used to complex paint schemes involving multiple colors. My record so far was 27 colors, 7 of which I custom mixed, for one kit.

Ray, I've already spotted your website and will be ordering some of your CDs in the future. Shouldn't be too hard to ship to Montreal. And I'll remember that the containers are NOT white!

I'm also a bit of a PE/extra detail nut and I'm planning on using decals and multiple PE sets from GMM, extra tractors and stuff from UMM, a bunch of deck crew from Eduard, as well as many extra aircraft from Trumpeter. Should keep me busy for a while!

I'm very impressed by the pix in the gallery section! I hope I can come close to the quality of the work I've seen there.

Thank you all for the information.

Luc