Sunday 23 June 2013

Japanese Spaceships and Request for Help

Introduction

A few weeks ago, I showed you my progress so far on fighters for the new 5150: Fighter Command ruleset.  That's fine as far as it goes, but I need some capital ships as well.  I've seen Bandai's "Space Battleship Yamato" [aka "Star Blazers"] series of plastic kits widely recommended for this role; HobbyLink Japan seems to be the most popular source for these.  I'm not a great fan of the styling of spaceships in Japanese anime, but I thought I should take a closer look to see why the Bandai kits are so popular.

Ordering from Japan

I quickly discovered that many (not all!) of the Space Battleship kits are a mere 180yen each.  That's about £1.20 (UK) or $1.80 (USA).  This seems too good to be true, but there are 2 other factors which affect international purchases a lot: postage rates and time-to-deliver.

I put together an order of 4 kits on the HobbyLink Japan site; the postage came to 680yen, or about as much again as the kits themselves.  That's not too bad; I figured that I could afford to take a chance for a little over £9.

So what about delivery time?  Well, I had a shipping confirmation notice 2 days after payment was made and a carton containing a Japanese customs label and other markings arrived some 6 days later than this.  I'd say that 8 days from start to finish was quite acceptable for goods from the other side of the world!

What's in the Boxes?

Each box contained 2 or 3 sprues of parts, coloured to match the predominant colour of the picture on the box (apart from the blue one?!).  What was more of a surprise is that 3 of the 4 kits also contained the parts for a second, much smaller spacecraft.  This wasn't at all obvious from the packaging or the online kit descriptions and came as a very pleasant surprise.  Instead of buying 4 models, I'd actually obtained 7!

Construction

Each kit was very easy to build; the parts fitted together well and there weren't huge numbers of them.  Because these will be used as gaming models, I left off some of the more fragile-looking protruding aerials and pylons.  I suspect that they would all have been broken the first time I transported these ships!

I also left off a few of the turrets, some of which I felt had very improbable locations (blocked by parts of the superstructure &c, with virtually no field of fire).  For the turrets that I did use, I cut down the gun barrels considerably; the Japanese style has excessively long, thin weapons for my taste.

The Results

I'm not sure of the original names or types of these vessels in the Space Battleship Yamato series, so I'll just refer to them by the kit numbers instead.  This is #15; it includes a large warship and a smaller vessel.  The big ship will probably end up as an alien capital ship in 5150.  The smaller craft looks somewhat like a submarine; I'm not certain what I'll do with that.

This one is kit #17.  It's a bit unusual: most of the Space Battleship models are long and thin, with more than a passing resemblance to World War 2 Japanese naval vessels.  However this ship is flat and wide, almost like a saucer, though it does still have the tall, multi-layer conning tower.

Model #26 is probably my least favourite.  It's undoubtedly a carrier, but behind the flight deck and narrowed waist is a somewhat boxy structure.  The smaller ship included in this kit is also rather ugly and not really to my taste.  It might be used as a civilian vessel or priority transport in Fighter Command, as it's clearly got a cockpit and is therefore a very different scale from its "mother ship".

Finally, we have #28.  I think this is the model that I like most from among the sets I bought.  It could play the part of a capital ship in Fighter Command, or perhaps it'll end up as a bulk carrier for my Full Thrust merchant fleet.  The smaller ship is probably destined for Fighter Command, maybe as an alien civilian vessel.

Conclusion

I will certainly paint up some of these models and use them in my games, though probably not in the "official" colour schemes as shown on the boxes.  The others?  I'm not so sure - there are enough competing demands on my time that the ships I like least will be some way down the workload queue.  Still, it was a fun experiment and hasn't cost a great deal of money or time so far.

A Request for Help

I've just started on the smaller fighters for my 3rd faction in 5150: Fighter Command.  However, I'm completely undecided on the colour scheme for this group.  Please, give me your thoughts and maybe I'll paint them up using your suggestion.  Here are some concepts that I've considered so far:
  • Yellow all over, with black nose and red markings.
  • 2-tone "camouflage", much as used by the RAF for the past 75 years.  Maybe green/brown, grey/green or brown/grey.  This might look good, but what would be the point of such camouflage in space?
  • Overall block colour (red?), but with "flying circus"-style markings.  The leader is just red, while others all have variations to distinguish them, such as black and white stripes on the wings, a yellow fuselage or a blue tail.
I look forward to hearing your ideas :-) .

21 comments:

  1. They all look pretty cool to me. But they're not for me to game with. They seem really reasonably priced I'm tempted to something maybe perhaps space fighters or something as I was wondering around the Shapeways site this morning lol.

    As for the fighters you make a good point about the camouflage. Perhaps a Grey with some panels picked out in blue.

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    1. There are some very nice models on the Shapeways site, but the cost (especially for the better materials!) is quite off-putting!

      Grey and blue had occurred to me, but my first group of space fighters are grey already.

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  2. Of the three colour choices I would go for the yellow base etc.

    Good to know about the speedy delivery from Japan.... makes me want to check them out!

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    1. The 3 ideas I gave weren't intended to be the only possible options! I agree that the yellow would look good, though I've always had difficulty with coverage for that colour.

      The speed of delivery may well vary; I was expecting it to be more like 5 weeks!

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    2. For yellow I found it easier to start from a light brown basecoat, add a bit to of the brown to the first coat of yellow it should then cover better.

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    3. I usually start with a white base for yellow (sometimes cream).

      If you want an open choice of colour scheme for the space ships. Then you have so many choices it becomes ridiculous. The first things I would suggest is determine if these ships are able to fly in a planets atmosphere. If so Then Camo is an option. If they are not capable of atmospheric manoeuvres it all comes down to what you think is best. and the only way I would work that out is to start putting colour on one and see if it inspires you.

      One of my old university lecturers used to say "draw three times and think once!"

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  3. I like the first color option. Paint them yellow and give them black tiger strips with red markings.

    So how do the Space Battleship Yamoto models scale up with your ships? I have been debating on whether to order some or not, myself.

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    1. Hmm - tiger stripes is definitely one of the more complex schemes to attempt. Maybe I'll do a tester first with one of the small models above.

      How big is a capital ship? The Space Battleship models in this article range from about 2.5" to 5" long. That's roughly 2-4 times the length of my EM-4 space fighters, so clearly the ships wouldn't be to anything like the same scale. Note also that these Bandai kits are "box scale" - they're whatever size will fit in a standard box - and are therefore not a consistent scale with each other. For spaceships, that doesn't bother me, as long as there are no clear reference points for size (such as a cockpit).

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    2. I will definitely have to think about ordering some of these for when I do get 5150: Fighter Command. Can't wait to see them painted and based.

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  4. Hi Hugh, nice pics of the models. How about a nebula camouflage scheme. Sort of a dark blue or black with red and yellow shapes to break it up, or any combination to help it blend into the snazzy space background.

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    1. Yes, I wondered about something like that. Camouflage on gaming pieces is tricky: it has to look plausible enough, but without being so effective that you cannot find the model!

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  5. Good to hear of the inexpensive pricing! Since BFG is now officially OOP, I will be looking for proxy models! The stuff on eBay has been crazy inflated. It's more like speculators than hobbyists are selling!
    For the paint schemes, I like the flying circus theme. Although I am not sure of the scale, some squadron markings like the USN Jolly Rogers would not be amiss!
    I just painted a lot of BFG ships on my blog and used a blue, white,black, and gray camp. Feel free to peruse and copy, perhaps you'll get a better inspiration and execution than I!

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    1. The Space Battleship fleets certainly seem to be close in spirit to Battlefleet Gothic, don't they?

      The Jolly Roger scheme is certainly the kind of inspiration that I'm looking for, thanks! And your BFG ships are very nice, too.

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  6. You could try a wasp or hornet-like pattern with 4 black bands on one ship, 3 on another... or just vary the width of the bands in between ships...

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    1. That would be quite impressive, wouldn't it :-) ?

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  7. I'd paint them in silver chrome with red nose and red markings just like those fighters from USAF during the Corea War. I painted mine like that and I liked the result: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gTXkhVyI2DM/UYY1iKHPGdI/AAAAAAAADNk/E8bNXSIKGPE/s1600/orcs+030.jpg

    BTW, you could use Kit #17 as a star base.

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    1. Ooh, I like your fighters! Chrome with a solid colour trim would be relatively simple and very effective, I think.

      Yes, I'd also thought that about #17. It's not quite symmetrical enough for my vision of a base, though I did have visions of kit-bashing 2 together!

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  8. I was looking at the Bandai ships after someone commented on your fighter post about them. Thanks for being the guinea pig and ordering them! ;) Good to see it wasn't an incredibly arduous process too.

    As to colour schemes, I think early WW1 would be a good inspiration, and if they are non atmospheric craft as Clint said, then the more colourful the better. Your idea of a theme per flight is a good one though, especially if you use a group of colours for a side - e.g. red & orange, shades of blue, shades of green etc

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    1. It was all too easy; not really good for something that is essentially a distraction from my main activities!

      I agree that WW1 German craft are a very good source of inspiration for colourful schemes.

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  9. They are really impressive for the price and service- nice find.

    I think camouflage on Space craft always looks complete pants, but paintschemes are there for those moments to show off at starports etc.

    I think a "Darth Maul" type pattern, with an orangey-red base colour and black stripes (diagonals, zig,zags etc)would look the part. Although all the wasp inspired patterns I think are great too.
    For inspiration look at the colours of some of the snakes of the world (coral snake springs to mind)

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    1. Camouflage might make some kind of sense for fighters that were atmosphere-capable, though even then I imagine that electronic sensing would be much more important than visual.

      Good call on the snakes! I imagine that some lizards, frogs and iguanas would be similarly colourful. Basically they're all saying "Look out - I'm dangerous!". Very appropriate for fighters :-) .

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