by Jose Soca
1/700 Surigao Sisters (Hi-Mold, Aoshima)
I've always liked these long neck dinosaurs maybe for a sentimental reason of how they went down fighting or perhaps by the awkward way they looked. I dated the diorama 1944, I'd like to think they are sailing together right after departing from Brunei bay towards Surigao Strait under Vice Admiral Nishimura's flag.
As in my Yamashiro, I used Flyhawk's outstanding P.E set. I can't say all was smooth sailing when I got to the pagoda structure though, however at the end all the extra work and extra fillings paid back. I'm truly amazed by how things came out after all. The rest of the ship I could say was a brief compare to the pagoda structure. I added some of Eduard's figurines, same as Lionroar's 25 mm single, double, triple machineguns and some Niko's double machine guns. The rigging was done using stretched sprue, I'd like to take the time and thank Jim Baumann in this occasion for his fantastic rigging tutorial on the site. Some extra things like binoculars, hanging ropes, splinter shields, sandbags or rolled hammocks were scratchbuilt using styrene rods and thin copper wires. In addition, I like to add this model is the first one I've ever airbrushed and weathered using water colors.
