Italeri 1/700 Admiral Kuznetsov Russian Aircraft Carrier

[ErikT]

This is the first one I've finished in a long time because it took ages and ages; I'm not sure if I'll ever do an aircraft carrier again.  Battleships and destroyers I can handle, but this one felt like a slog at times.  I've had the kit in my stash for over 20 years, and I finally decided to give it a go.  As my first carrier, I think it went okay; I definitely made a few mistakes, and the kit itself had more than a few inaccuracies and badly-moulded parts so I had to fix or replace what I could.  I even 3D printed a few small parts here and there because some things were just featureless lumps.  The hull number is incorrect because the decal sheet had absorbed some moisture at some point and the proper hull number had deteriorated to being unusable, but the rest of the decals actually turned out pretty nicely.  I detailed it with the GMM Russian Navy photo etch kit along with some much better fighters and helicopters from Trumpeter, and I had a couple little missile boats sitting around that I decided to add in there to give the old girl some company. It was all painted using Tamiya acrylics and weathered with Abteilung oils, then set into a base I made by following Studio Blue Ocean's techniques on YouTube.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ArnoldAmbrose]

G'day @ErikT, she's a beautiful model, well worth the 20 year wait.       Regards, Jeff.

[Adler Leon]

Thats terrific

L

[Noel Smith]

What can I say?

Yes, it was worth the effort. This model shows what can be done with an elderly kit. The corrections and extra retailing that has gone into this model is incredible. The sea base looks very convincing and I will have to take a peek at that YouTube video Erik mentioned.

Of particular note is the way that Erik has made a very convincing realistic looking flight deck showing the sort of regular wear and tear that would occur on it during operations. A superb model in all respects and a testament to Erik's eye for detail that would be considered excellent on a 350th scale model let alone a model like this one of half the size in 1/700th scale.

 

Will you be building another one Erik?  This time in dry dock where third real carrier seems to spend much of its time !  Lol.

[robgizlu]

That is Very Nice indeed.  Really like the Carrier deck weathering and the sea is terrific.

Great Dio 

Rob

[Courageous]

Very nicely done. Good work.

 

Stuart

[theskits62]

That is really impressive - well done !!

[ErikT]

Thanks so much for the kind words, everyone!  This one took me a while, but I have a few more ship models in my to-do pile, so there will be further posts in the future.  I really can't take all the credit for the sea base; check out Studio Blue Ocean on YouTube.  That guy works magic and I just copy him, though I still struggle with the foam effects.  Next up will be an Iowa-class battleship, I think.