My first 1:350 build, Trumpeter CVN-68 USS Nimitz

[kylewoody]

UN BE LIEV ABLE.

Or Bieberable. Hollywood is subliminal.

Those aircraft are out of this world, uncomprehensible, and honestly fake. I said it. Fake. Who can do that in 350th?!

Kyle

[NWarty]

Thank you much guys.

I'm going to drink a lot of beer now. 16 hours over the last two days. My head hurts and my wife hates me...

Awww....yeahhhhh

[boomstick68]

Very nice. Congrats. Oh, and never do that to Spiderman. Just wrong.

[anyahajobuzi]

UN BE LIEV ABLE.

Or Bieberable. Hollywood is subliminal.

Those aircraft are out of this world, uncomprehensible, and honestly fake. I said it. Fake. Who can do that in 350th?!

Kyle

Fake....that's awesome! And a VERY serious offence Blake!!!. When the US government finds out that you've been shrinking their planes at Davis-Monthan, and those black SUV-s show up at your doorstep, first of all they will take your shrink ray away, and will shoot you on site! Or even worse: they could destroy your ship!!
So why don't you stop your illegal activities, and join us non-cheaters who use plastic pieces to express their skills.
Shrink ray?! What were you thinking? Did you at least use them guys you hate from work and put them on your flighdeck?

All in all you have built a VERY impressive model. One little criticism though: If you have this incredible skill to build way better airwing than most us in the world, apply all that to the entire ship. Oh that came out wrong I think, here is what I meant: Every piece YOU put on that ship shows skill and patience, and I love ALL of it, you just left some of those really horrible Trumpeter mistakes unaddressed. (but yeah, who the hell wants to waste 6 (!!!) winters on a single ship , eh???? )
I hope I managed to end up with giving you a compliment, because that's all I meant! You do have my admiration, and I am looking forward to your next build for sure!

, Blake!!

Truly yours: Laci

[NWarty]

Laci,
Many, many thanks bud.

Yeah, looking back, there are so many things that I should have done with this build. From the rectangular pods on the starboard side of the island, to the catwalks, the hangar deck, so on and so forth. But, it's done and going back to fix anything would drive me nuts. This being really my first ship model, I learned a ton from so many members here and hopefully can use many of these learned techniques and apply them to my future builds.

She still sits on my box in my man room on the pool table. No display case yet. I know, I know...

A vintage Tamiya R/C car fell into my lap this past December after I completed the Nimitz build (I'm an R/C nut too). A very, very rare one that I got for free from my local hobby shop that was dropped off as a donation. So the display case fund ended up being used to restore the 34-year old Martini Porsche 935 Turbo back to its original condition. THANK GOD I kept all that styrene rod! I'm currently wrapping up a Wild Willy 2 build done in 2nd Infantry Division colors that involved a ton of scratchbuilding. Again...thank God I kept all that sheet and plastic rod

So maybe this weekend, I'll drape the box in a sheet, make a background and take some finished photos. It's only fitting since I need to move this to the completed build section. Plus, I only have one pic in this thread of all the dudes having a party on the flight deck.

[NWarty]

Mods,
Need some help moving this to the "Completed Section".

At the encouragement of another member, I've decided to finally post some completed photos. I'm contemplating showing her at the IPMS show in Renton, WA in April as display only, but will have to fix a couple of things before hand, mainly the demo charges on the starboard side and tearing off the boats on the port since Trumpy got it wrong.

She's been a labor of love and I'll probably never do another project like it. Would love to do another one with amount of stuff I've learned over the last four years, but then again, poking myself in the eye sounds like a lot more fun

A huge thanks to Ryan, Laci, James, Doug and Kelly. Without your help and knowledge this would never have been possible.



















































































Cheers guys. And to my friend Laci, you rock dude (I'm on the left )

[boomstick68]

Congrats! She is beautiful. Those aircraft are.....WICKED!!!! Your VF-41 Tomcats are freakin amazing.

[NWarty]

Thanks James I'm thinking those Black Aces turned out a lot better than my JR's

[Cliffy B]

[sgtryan13]

Awesome! Congrats on the finish, not a lot of modelers see these things through to the end, especially once they get into the airwing. She looks great!

[Jaguar]

No words, impressive model. Your attention to detail is outstanding.

Congratulations

[gtbred]

That is kickass man!

[Kodai]

impressive..very impressive, congratulations..

[Thomas E. Johnson]

A most impressive build!!!!

I'm doing the same ship and in roughly the same time period (The Final Countdown) as one of my current WIPs. I'm not going as far out as you have done, but none the less will be referring to your pics of your build for reference and for inspiration!!!!

[NWarty]

Thomas,
Many thanks and best of luck with your build, I'll be looking for your build thread

And Ryan, Mark and several others have stated that the configuration of my ship is exactly during the timeframe when they filmed TFC, well, a couple months afterwards The only thing I regret not doing is the demo boxes on the starboard side of the island. Heck I may actually go back one day and do that

Best wishes,
Blake

[marijn van gils]

Congrats! She is beautiful. Those aircraft are.....WICKED!!!! Your VF-41 Tomcats are freakin amazing.

+ 1000!!!
Amazing stuff!

I wouldn't be surprised if the airwing took you more time than the ship itself.

Cheers,

Marijn

[Troy H]

Blake,

This is an astonishing masterwork! I did, however, note one detail that you may consider correcting. I'll admit up front that it's not *completely* clear in any of your photos, so I may just be mis-seeing it, but it appears that your screws on the port side would be contra-rotating, when they should actually rotate the same way. When looking toward the bow from the stern, a carrier's port screws rotate counterclockwise & her starboard screws rotate clockwise (assuming the ship is making forward way).

Your model sure made me miss my carrier days!