The NeOmega kit is a beauty but by goodness you sure need steady hands and a nice pair of non ping tweezes as there are a lot of miniature parts.
I started by marking the deck with a needle point using the supplied template before then adding the brass deck detail parts.
After looking through my references on coastal forces I decided to make MTB 701 as I liked the complex colour scheme. However, that meant I had to replace the 4-kit supplied 18-inch torpedo tubes with 2 21-inch torpedo tubes. Now in this scale the diameter is not noticeable but the length certainly is, so to fix this I cut 2 of the supplied tubes into three and extended them using two pieces of plastic rod in each and adding the compressed air launching tanks. Lengthening the tube then required that the mounting rails needed fabricating. This was done using plasti-card and strip and lots of holes drilled.
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The hull was then painted and one of the bases from “Hobbycraft” selected (as advertised by MikeV) I added a piece of 6mm “Melomine” on the bottom at least 4mm all round to make it possible to add a display cover later. As for the sea/water effects see MikeV,s article in the July “Airfix magazine” “All at Sea”
As for my water base I wanted rougher North Sea effects so a Sea-base was made using my cheap system using toilet tissue and white glue papier-Mache type sea, the boat was placed onto the base in the position I wanted after first adding masking tape to the hull to protect the paint and then the wake was built up using toilet paper and glue until I was happy with the effect. (The boat was then carefully removed). Once dry I sprayed the whole with “Halfords” grey primer (A number of coats was used to try to smooth out any pointy bits) but I still was not happy that it was smooth enough so used two coats of “Scenic Waters Water effects” to soften the water. Another coat of “Halfords” was now used as a base for the Humbrol enamels as the main colours. (Humbrol 104 blue as the main colour followed by using a small amount of Humbrol 105 green and a touch of yellow blended into the blue while still wet, from the base of the waves towards the top to start creating the effect of a cold rough sea. This was followed by a coat of “Future” to seal and protect to enamel paints. Now it was time to create the whiteish wave tops and any water movement by using oil paints. (it's the oils that really bring on the moving sea effect). I then fix the hull to the base to minimise handling the boat and then all the deck fittings are added. (Which is still ongoing). Once the boat is fixed to the base it will be blended in using cotton wool to represent the boats wake. This is done by painting on “Future” to the places I want to show water spray and then sticking cotton wool quite generously to the “Future”. Once really dry I then start pulling off any access cotton until I'm happy with the scene.
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