The Ship Model Forum

Ok small progress on the launchers.

First the halves were glued together. I made sure the glue oozed out of the seam thus no need for filler was needed.



After that both of these halves were glued together just to be greeted with another massive seam!
This one ate some super glue but after some sanding ended really nice.



Here's the completed and primed launcher ready to recieve some paint.
These things just require a lot of work but in the end they end up quite nice
if you just have the patience and right tools to handle them.

This image speaks for itself!



I had to get my hands on those resin turrets, and I just have to say I don't even want to post a comparison shot of these and the kit ones.
You probably wouldn't recognize the kit ones haha. They really are that bad.

Here they are with their etches attached. Too bad the PE set doesn't provide all of the ladders. The set only has 4 of them per turret when there's
7 of them actually. I cannibalized my earlier sovremenny for some extras and used vertical ladders on some.





Also the stern gun has a different height of the mount. It's a bit higher than the one on the bow so I added some styrene strip to get it to sit higher.

Still no idea when my paints are gonna arrive so I think I have to get started on the hull starting with the hull color first.
I usually start with the antifouling red. Probably doesn't make that much of a difference anyway.

Here's some progress pics of the front superstructure detailing.

The plumbing had to go and incame a new one.



I added some styrene rods to lift the plumbing up a bit. Also locating holes were drilled next to the
antenna mount.



And both sides installed.





Here's the main part. Detailed using styrene rod, strip and other PE pieces.
I wanted it to look rather busy but still something that I could easily add up
to other parts of the build without getting too stressed out of the level of detail.
So everything is kept to simple and easily produced shapes.

Small progress.





Also started to paint the hull. I just finished the basic color when I ran out of paint. Good news is my restock is on the way!
Should arrive in a week or so.

So I'll continue to work on detailing the superstructures and other detail parts.

A very nice work Koppalakki well start which augurs a great "final"
cheers
Nicolas

Thanks Nicolas! I see you are busy as ever with your never ending line of Richelieus.

Here's the finished 130mm turret with its modified mount.









After primer turrets were preshaded with navy blue once again. After that main color airbrushed with some highlights
with a bit lighter color. After that the details were painted. One light coat of satin varnish finished them.
Lastly I sprayed alclad duralium on the turret and used burnt umber oil paint to give it a brownish tint.

..

Koppalakki wrote:...I see you are busy as ever with your never ending line of Richelieus..

Hi Koppalakki
there is at least one which has been completed, the other is in progress......well! it's true,I have not your rapidity ...but he advances
very nice modifying ,and good paint job on the turrets this turrets ,by their shapes, are very original
good continuation on your projet
cheers
Nicolas

Well I'm on my summer break so instead of working 8 hours a day I get to build ships 8 hours a day!

I started to work on the helo deck superstructure. There was some modifications required to make it appear more like the
real ship. I hardly do anything like this to my models so it was a new leap forward for me.



I started by adding some sheet styrene to strenghten the superstructure. After that the gangway recesses were
sawed out and new walls from sheet styrene were constructed.



There's also some kind of recess under the control room on the starboard side. I cut the plastic off carefully and filed it.



After that styrene strip and sheet pieces were built in.



Excess was shaved off and sanded. CA was applied to the edges and more sanding was done to make it fit in.

On the upper deck a gangway under the helo deck was constructed aswell.





They might not be 100% accurate but definetly better than the kits vision. Hopefully.
I'm pretty new to this kinda of work so I'm pretty happy how it turned out without me destroying everything!

Brilliant build ,will be watching all the way

Fantastic clean build, watching with interest

Thanks for the comments guys!

Here's the finished launchers!

Ok so some bigger update!

I'm pleased to announce the completion of the helo deck superstructure!

Well not completly finished, all the railing and other details will be added after initial painting is done.
About 25 hours were spent on this thing. Started with assemblying all the major parts and took care that
most of the seams were taken care of before any detailing commenced.

After that was bagged a ton of styrene was thown at it with a good ammount of reference photos at my side.
Mostly scratchbuilding , the WEM PE set also contributed with their nice etches. I did not follow the instructions
on the UNREP/Boat crane assembly but used and modified the parts and relied on my reference photos instead.

Also the funnel "cap" has a little step and a seam in real life so I sanded it close to level and left it like that.
A lot of the superstructure shapes were also filed and sanded to match the real thing.

The only downside is that even my added strenght on the modified parts the decks warped the whole thing about 2mm.
It can be easily pressed back so I hope I get it glued nicely to the deck anyway without completly destroying it.

I took a break from all the filling and sanding and made some PE work.

Here's the aft mast.







And finished with vallejos black primer.







My paint restock is bound to arrive tomorrow so I'll finally get to finish the hull!

Here's a quick look on the finished bow superstructure.

As usual first preshaded, then the normal base color spray and some highlighting.
For the deck I used Gunzes H414 RLM23 red. It's a orange tinted red that suited really well for this,
and not needing any mixing it's easy to use. The deck recieved a yellow oil filter. For the rest different shades of gray and blue
oils were dapped and blended once again. Followed by a black pin wash. And vallejos satin varnish to top it off.
After this some pigments were applied to the deck. I used MIGs brick dust. All the details were then picked
off with a revell enamel light gray to pronounce little details. Vallejos bright orange for the life rings.
Also some vallejos flat red for other details. Gloss black was used for the windows and portholes topped with
krystal klear.

And there it is!

OK I finished the hull for the most part!

There' still more work to do on the deck adding some small details etc.

I think I accidentally deleted some of the progress pics or something but here's a run down of all the steps:

1. First preshaded the panel lines with navy blue.
2. Main color sprayed inside the panels.
3. Used a masking tape to mask sharp lines first vertically then horizontally. Used a lighter shade of base gray.
4. Overspray with lightened base color to blend the effect to be more subtle.
5. Masked and sprayed the white water line.
6. Sprayed the hull red. Same steps as with the main hull color.
7. Masked the black boot topping. (Not sure if the ship actually had it but modern sovremennys do have them and they are really worn out.)
Sprayed a chipping medium (hairspray) before spraying flat black.
8. Chip away!
9. Sprayed Alclad aqua gloss where the decals would go. After decals were dry coated with another coat of aqua gloss.
10. Different shades of oil colors dotted on the hull blended with a wide brush. Stayed above the waterline mark.
11. Burnt umber oils used to make rust and dirt marks. Dotted on the porthole/hull then with a moistened brush streaked down along the hull.
12. Vallejo satin varnish.
13. Portholes were filled with krystal klear.
14. Props were coated with alclad black base gloss. After curing alclad polished brass was airbrushed and buffed.

I guess that's pretty much it in a nut shell.

Here's the pictures!

a paint work very impresive I like and that's not to mention your speed in the work
superb
Nicolas

Koppalakki wrote:OK I finished the hull for the most part!

There' still more work to do on the deck adding some small details etc.

I think I accidentally deleted some of the progress pics or something but here's a run down of all the steps:

1. First preshaded the panel lines with navy blue.
2. Main color sprayed inside the panels.
3. Used a masking tape to mask sharp lines first vertically then horizontally. Used a lighter shade of base gray.
4. Overspray with lightened base color to blend the effect to be more subtle

So in step 3 did you tape off the whole model with vertical lines then run horizontal tape and paint inside? Or was this done panel by panel?

If I understand this step is very over exaggerated and it may look like a chess board, then the over spray tones it down. Then the filters tone it down even more.

Also can I request a top view picture with the bow structure?

Thank you so much for sharing this process.

It is very inspiring!!!!!

Todd

It was done panel by panel. Look at the pictures of how I did it on the deck and you get the idea. The whole hull was done first vertically then horizontally.
It does look like a chess board after that but toning it down is the key atlest in my opinion. It's pretty subtle now that it is finished and looks pretty nice
atleast in my opinion.

Do you want a top view picture of the bow with the superstructure?

AHHHHHH, I get it after going back to the deck painting pictures.

Yes for the top view picture I was wanting to see the contrasting deck colors.

Thanks,

Todd