Thanks for the kind remarks guys!
I was too focused on building Littorio I couldn't find the time to post photos of the build in progress. No matter, here are about 5 days worth of progress, including the plenty of long breaks I've accumulated within the build

Here are the superstructure parts and one turret freshly spray-painted
Attachment:
DSC01313.JPG [ 100.03 KiB | Viewed 926 times ]
Here the turrets and superstructure parts are dry-fitted. Like the main deck, I painted the superstructure deck by brush painting the entire deck with the deck color then painted the small details with a smaller brush.
Attachment:
DSC01314.JPG [ 90.47 KiB | Viewed 926 times ]
The 15 in gun barrels, the secondary guns, the turrets and bases of the 3.5 in guns, a few boats and the life rafts have been attached to the superstructure. I'll add the gun barrels later in the build.
I've learned a lot of history about Italian ships lately, thanks to the Calling all Vittorio Veneto class Fans thread. At first I painted the life rafts yellow orange, as indicated by the Trumpy color guide and some Italian ship builds I've seen, but after some research I found out that these were the same color as the hull during 1941, so I repainted them. Too bad, they gave the model a more colorful look, but the grey color looks fine, and I can sit back knowing that at least the colors of the model are correct
Attachment:
DSC01322.JPG [ 107.52 KiB | Viewed 926 times ]
The boats were a challenge too. I almost went mad making a horde of these tiny boats, but after browsing the CVVCF thread, I found out that less than half the boats were actually carried on all ships of the class. What a relief. I drew the windows of the boats with a 0.3 drafting pen and handpainted the bridge windows with thinned flat black.
Attachment:
DSC01325.JPG [ 105.66 KiB | Viewed 926 times ]
Attachment:
DSC01327.JPG [ 95.45 KiB | Viewed 926 times ]
Attachment:
DSC01330.JPG [ 101.16 KiB | Viewed 926 times ]
The masts, barrels and a few small parts I left out are finally attached. My cute but evil dog accidentally devoured one of the secondary guns

I was able to save it, but I lost one life raft, oh well . I proceeded to the sea. I'm following a modified Jim Baumann water-making version for this build. The base is foam board with watercolor paper glued on top, then I molded the waves with modelling clay.
Attachment:
DSC01335.JPG [ 118.17 KiB | Viewed 926 times ]
Attachment:
DSC01336.JPG [ 116.17 KiB | Viewed 926 times ]
Next comes the painting, a few PE and rigging and she is done!
More soon!
Nick
