1:48 Engine Room #3 Battleship USS New Jersey for Permanent Display on Board.

Thanks fellows! I love that this site is so international. It truly is a global hobby.

But, work is not quite done. I've been working with Kostas Kokkonis fom Hellenistic Models in Greece to create some appropriately garbed crew for a US Navy engine room. Kostas has a line of figures he sells on Etsy and EBay, but they were not dressed correctly. I asked him if he could produce some with naval work outfits that are typical on interior work crew and he agreed. I sent him photos of engine room crew that Ryan got me. He's been running a little behind and he agreed to sell me the STL files and I would print them myself. He had never done it that way, but it was the fastest way for me to get the figures into the model. He sent me one figure to test the system. Today I printed the figure.

I had first tried to modify its posture digitally, but found that rotating limbs created some much chaos in the skin texture that I gave up and decided to do it old school. I cut the limbs with a razor saw, re-positioned them and glued them in place with Bondic. For the hands that needed rotating, I wired them with 0.010" guitar string. The results aren't great. I have to work on the geometry. It's not so simple to move arms and legs and have them come out where you want them.

Here is the figure that he sent. I printed 6 of them. As usual, the beauty of having the STLs is I can print an infinite amount of them. I promised Kostas that I would not share the STLs and am sticking by that agreement. The figure is pointing straight out which is not the most useful post.



I'm attempting to bend the figure so it can climb a vertical ladder. I got it close, but not right… yet. The legs akimbo are a problem making the angularity when bent not right. i will have to bend and rotate the leg. What was good was how well the repositioned joints look. Any gaps were filled with Bondic and sanded.



I did abother figure with both arms out straight and both hands rotated in a grab position.



The arm spread was too narrow for the railings on the ladders.

Here's the three of them.



This image shows the problem of simply rotating and STL mesh figure. When you rotate it, the mesh stretches into a mess. You have to cut away the mess and redraw all the vertiexes that are now missing and it's painstaking and takes a long time. That area of orange is the back side of the chest. Any holes in the matrix will result in a failed print. It's why it was easier to work in the real world and cut the prints and reglue in the new positions.



Kostas is sending a whole set with different poses which will simplify my work. I gave him a deadline of the 2nd week in December since it will take me some time to modify any of them and paint them all. After that I don't want to worry about it. Delivery is scheduled for Christmas week.

Great work so far!

True, but you all know all of that. There may be some who can grasp it. For instance, one of the fellows responding to this topic on another forum was an electrical maintenance tech who actually worked in the New Jersey's Engine Room #3 for the Viet Nam activation until de-commisioning. He was blown away by the model. There will be folks visiting the ship who served on her. They will understand what it took to make the model.

More on Kostas Kokkonis' figures for the model. I sent Kostas the pictures of engine room crew to show him the clothing. I expected him to simply take his normal line of US Navy figures and change the garb. He did not! Instead, he just sent me the design for the board operator which looks like a 1:1 rendition of the image I sent him. I am truly impressed.

First, the image I sent.



And Kostas' figure.



I don't know about you, but this blows my mind. I asked him what other figures is he going to send. I'm a good modeler, but can't do figures at all. I don't even know where to start. And through the marvelous communications technolgy we now have at our fingertips, being able to work with a person in Greece to create this is awesome, in the literal sense of the word.

I though that I would have to modify the hand positions and scratch build the headset if I wanted to model the figure from life. He did all that for me.

HellenicNavalmodels is his company. If you ever buy anything from him, please tell him that you heard about him through me. He's on eBay.

Excellent work so far!

Builder 2010 said:

More on Kostas Kokkonis' figures for the model. I sent Kostas the pictures of engine room crew to show him the clothing. I expected him to simply take his normal line of US Navy figures and change the garb. He did not! Instead, he just sent me the design for the board operator which looks like a 1:1 rendition of the image I sent him. I am truly impressed.

First, the image I sent.

View attachment 856025

And Kostas' figure.

View attachment 856024

I don't know about you, but this blows my mind. I asked him what other figures is he going to send. I'm a good modeler, but can't do figures at all. I don't even know where to start. And through the marvelous communications technolgy we now have at our fingertips, being able to work with a person in Greece to create this is awesome, in the literal sense of the word.

I though that I would have to modify the hand positions and scratch build the headset if I wanted to model the figure from life. He did all that for me.

HellenicNavalmodels is his company. If you ever buy anything from him, please tell him that you heard about him through me. He's on eBay.

Click to expand...

Might be done in something like Blender. Big learning curve to get to that stage though. Should be an excellent addition.

The board operator figure came today from Kostas (at Hellenicshipmodels.com) and it was exactly what he showed me on the rendering image. After I printed it; with no modifications at all, it came out perfectly. Even that microscopic headphone cable printed and was intact on 3 of the 5 pieces I printed. I started painting the figures today and he's sending me two more characters in a couple of days.



The file he sent was much smaller than 1:48. I was able to enlarge them directly in the slicer. A 6 foot person is 38.1mm in 1:48. I just dialed that number into the slicer and voila, perfectly-sized people. He's sending me two more and I don't know their posture. It will be a surprise.

When the board man was placed in front of the gauge board his hands grabbed the forward throttle wheel perfectly.



I also tried him standing over the electrical control console and that works too. I think I use him twice. The figure was not fully cleaned when I took the picture.



Getting a decent denim color was harder than I thought it should be, but what I got is close to what the fellow was wearing in the photo.



I first tried mixing Vallejo paints to get the denim color, but it was coming out greenish. I then went to my standby Tamiya and got a better color. It's blue, some neutral gray and a bit of white to tune it up.



For flesh color I use Vallejo Shadow Flesh and white. It's close. I still have more painting to do, but couldn't resist putting him back on the board.



Kostas did an amazing job using just that one image to create the figure. My modeling buddy, Andre Dell, when seeing the model in person earlier this week said the only thing it needed was some people to give folks an idea of the scale of this place. I totally agreed and told him they were coming. They really do add the missing touch.

Icing on the cake.

Wonderful attention to detail

Great work so far!

My wife had her first cataract surgery yesterday, so i didn't get into the shop until this afternoon. I got the crew painted, but am expecting more figures from Kostas. So all the figures I placed are temporary depending on the postures of the new figures. Even without them the crew I have works. I'm not a great painter of miniature figures, especially in scales smaller than 1/32. It's really hard to get facial features delineated properly. On the first Kostas figure, my printing scale was a tad smaller than the board operator figure and the head proportions were also different so picking out mouths, eyes, ears, etc. didn't work as well. The best part of the board man figure was the headphones and I was able to do them justice. I have an old Model Railroader Magazine article floating around somewhere in my archives that shows how to paint small figures better than I do them. I'm going to dig that out and re-learn how to do it. Meanwhile, he they are doing their jobs in the engine room. The guy in the Kahki uniform is the Chief Engineer.



Here's the whole crew. The fat guy on the right end is a Woodland Scenics O'gauge figure that was wearing a hard hat that I ground off. It's not designed as fine as Kostas'



I'll post again when Kostas new figures arrive.

Builder 2010 said:

My wife had her first cataract surgery yesterday, so i didn't get into the shop until this afternoon. I got the crew painted, but am expecting more figures from Kostas. So all the figures I placed are temporary depending on the postures of the new figures. Even without them the crew I have works. I'm not a great painter of miniature figures, especially in scales smaller than 1/32. It's really hard to get facial features delineated properly. On the first Kostas figure, my printing scale was a tad smaller than the board operator figure and the head proportions were also different so picking out mouths, eyes, ears, etc. didn't work as well. The best part of the board man figure was the headphones and I was able to do them justice. I have an old Model Railroader Magazine article floating around somewhere in my archives that shows how to paint small figures better than I do them. I'm going to dig that out and re-learn how to do it. Meanwhile, he they are doing their jobs in the engine room. The guy in the Kahki uniform is the Chief Engineer.

View attachment 857995View attachment 857996View attachment 857997View attachment 857998View attachment 857999View attachment 858000

Here's the whole crew. The fat guy on the right end is a Woodland Scenics O'gauge figure that was wearing a hard hat that I ground off. It's not designed as fine as Kostas'

View attachment 858001

I'll post again when Kostas new figures arrive.

Click to expand...

Absolutely outstanding work! I hope there will be videos of the visitors enjoying your display. Kostas' work is amazing and a perfect fit. A small critic comment if I may. The chief's khakis are too shiney for fabric. Only the seat of his trousers should be shiney.
What's the next project?
I hope her eye surgery went as well as mine.

I'm sure I saw one of those figures move.

Excellent work so far!

Much to my horror, I found that one of the large wheels on the LP turbine was missing some blades. it is NOT hidden and I had to try and fix it.



I printed some blade segments and trimmed it to fit into the space.



Took three tries to get it into place, although not perfectr. It's better than a gaping hole. Used CA to hold it in. No one, and I mean NO ONE can get this close to it, especially with the acrylic case between the model and the viewer.



I changed the Khaki color on the petty officer and added belts on all the characters. Ryan informed me that the normal watch crew was 8 sailors with 24 at general quarters. I'm shooting for the former rather than the latter.



And Kostas sent me two more figures. Both have hands in a relaxed posture; one in pockes with a jump suit and the other with bare arms and denim and chambris. Started painting them today. I'll find a place for them. You can't see it through the sloppy first coat flesh color, but the fellow has his thumbs outside of the pockets.