UA651 - Imperial Japanese Navy Beimatsu Deck Tan

A wooden deck in the Japanese version

The acrylic paint Imperial Japanese Navy Beimatsu Deck Tan is aimed at the horizontal surfaces that were not covered with a deck material but stayed wooden. The word in the name refers to the kind of wood the deck planks were made from; the range offers a second wood tone as well, so a choice between them can be made according to how the deck is meant to look.

Why wood is not just brown

A wooden deck on a model easily slides into a uniform brown area, but by that it loses what matters. Deck wood is light and warm, with a tone closer to sand than to furniture brown, and its look is determined by sunshine, salt and the unceasing traffic of the crew. A shade corresponding to a particular kind of wood is therefore not a detail for sticklers but a starting point, without which a deck will look darker and more cumbersome than it did.

How to turn a flat color into planks

The basic tone is applied continuously across the whole deck and the differences are built on top of it. It proves worthwhile to distinguish the individual planks, or at least groups of planks, very slightly, so that the area gets texture, and to darken the surroundings of the superstructures, the hatches and the places where dirt gathered. The paths that were walked on most, on the other hand, tend to be somewhat lighter. The differences should stay fine; too strong a contrast turns a deck into a chessboard. A light deck moreover works well as a counterweight to the gray of the superstructures, so it pays to make sure that it stays the lightest area of the whole model.

Suitable for

• The wooden decks of Japanese warships
• Light horizontal surfaces and walkways
• Texturing deck planks in groups
• Contrast with the gray of the sides and with the underwater part of the hull