1/350 SSGN Oscar II class submarine 'Kursk'

[The_Lancaster]

Hey Guys,

Here's my rendition of the rather nice HobbyBoss Kursk. Nice being used only to describe the detail - construction was horrible! The silos straddling each side of the conning tower were positioned on the basis of a semi-hemispherical notch and that's it. Sounds relatively easy on paper, but in real life it was painful... hence the closed bays!
Apart from that the fit of the hull together in two parts was nice and the conning tower was also a nice fit. I found however the instruments such as the ESM, periscope radar etc. were a fiddle as the lack of locating holes problematic in getting the masts to sit straight. So it was a little by eye to be fair, and from this i can only conclude i need an eye test...

Painting her in Humbrol 67 'Tank Grey' which in effect was a match for the Mr. Hobby 'Tyre Black' Hobbyboss were calling for. The underside was Sovereign Hobby's Colourcoat's RM08 'Rosso' which in layman's terms is White Ensign's model enamels equivalent to hull red I believe.

The conning tower called for it to be all black but contemporary photos of Kursk showed it having the bad-weather deck windows framed in white giving the, what looks like to me, soviet subs a rather creepy look. Also I painted some stems silver and the big dome yellow as per a reference photo I found and lost. So lets call that one artistic licence! 
Decalling was interesting as the carrier film the decals came on was excessively large and trying to get decals such as the emergency buoy over the dome for it was eating into my decal softener stash something rotten.
Weathering however consisted mainly of Tamiya Smoke on the underside, Tamiya German Grey on top lightening patches and loads of streaking with oil paintings.

Finishing off with Xtracolour's Enamel Matte Varnish I began work on the base which was literally Tamiya Gold leaf with the recessed areas sprayed black.

 

And so it is I have finished my first ship model and so far I've gotten hold of Bronco's HMS Vanguard and Micro-Mir's Alfa to folllow the build up! As to be honest I did enjoy the build quite a lot

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I probably could of dusted her off but I didn't quite expect to find so much after just 2 days of finishing... Maybe time to clean the modelling room out!

 

Thanks for looking guys

 

Sam

[Overpin]

Very nice indeed, especially for your first ship model. I just built Zvezda's Kursk and yours looks pretty similar, apart from the decal sheets. Zvezda's kit didn't have decals for the centerbody load lines, but did include decals for the bad weather windows' white borders which I did like. Looking forward to seeing more ships from you. 

[whitestar12chris]

Cracking job, youve nailed the upper hull colour very well, sounds like youve got the submarine bug, welcome aboard.

 

All the best Chris