I always liked Nagato. As Admiral Yamamoto's flagship some of you might think forget that rusted bucket battleship. Yamato was truly a flagship and in a sense it was Japan's flagship but I think Nagato was still a formidable battleship, even after Yamato and her sister Musashi came to be the top players. Nagato with her striking pagoda mast and unique design, is what the real essence of the Imperial Japanese Navy was all about in my opinion.  I began working on her on May of last year when Ii bought this Aoshima kit right off FreeTimeHobbie's booth table at Orlando's Modelpalooza. I remember I had bought Lionroar's super detail set and KA Model's wood deck beforehand, so all I needed was the kit and once I got it the fun started. As I've done with many of my other IJN subjects, I always separate each section of the ship as different tasks. It's a method that I've acquired throughout my years of modeling the IJN.  Pagoda, funnel, and aft structures are 3 sections the last and 4 section is the hull which incorporates a lot from the railings to almost every single tiny detail that goes on it. Once I got to add KA Model's deck I discovered I had to remove many of the molded deck details and I felt disappointed at first but once I came with a solution everything fell right on place. I ordered 1/700 scale Clipper's mushroom vents, these are made out of brass and price was a bit stiff but I needed them. Some other vents I simply scratch-built using styrene rods. The deck winches you see on deck are from Battlefleet Models, all I had to do was improvise a bit and by that I mean I had to redesign them to look more IJN style. Detail on those little things are very crispy same as for the capstans. I painted Nagato with Tamiya's Kure color and she was mildly weathered using my water colors. her water base is made out of styrofoam and papier-mâché and it was painted with water colors Blue Navy, another light blue color. The last step on the water was to brush a layer of gloss glaze and I really like it because it gives the water a nice glossy color and not an opaque one. Last to be finished was the rigging and it was done with stretched sprue.

Jose Soca

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