Graf Spee

The hull assembled and glued. Taped up to keep gaps closed while the glue cures.  

Subassembly construction. All parts painted with an airbrush before removal from the sprue thus time as the are very small. Believe it or not, there are two shades of grey. Humbrol 87 steel grey is the slightly darker shade and the other is Vallejo light grey.
First coat of Humbrol wine red sprayed and then sanded. All paints are acrylic.
 

Nearly done. Details to paint. Unfortunately the carpet monster ate a couple of small deck parts including a capstan. I shall have to try to fashion replacements from sprue.  

I am considering enhancing the paint scheme using this December 1939 camouflage. This document comes from kbismarck.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=467 and was researched by Abram Joslin and Antonio Bonomi. There is a great deal of material on the web about this famous ship, much of it very much of interest to the modeller. One day I would like to build one at a larger scale. I would also quite like to add some of the rigging if I can figure out a way to do it well and convincingly. Perhaps some very thin thread attached with tiny dots of superglue? One of the things I am not happy with the kit is the aircraft which Airfix have you paint in green. I have done so and it looks pretty awful. The problem is that it is so small that to try to do anything more authentic would be very difficult and adding a propeller would be nigh-on impossible.  

I went ahead and applied the camouflage for the December 1939 scheme. This is where it is now. Everything was painted with an airbrush on the model except the camouflage black and the aircraft (not yet mounted). I was pleased with how the black hull line came out. I just masked off and painted it in two coats with the airbrush at 15 psi and 30% thinned Humbrol matt black acrylic (33). The line is actually straight and no bleed, amazingly! The Tamiya tape is worth the money.
The next job is rigging using AK Hyper-thin 40 denier lycra line which is on order. It will be my first time attempting rigging on a model for about 60 years so wish me luck! 

I have decided to go a step further with this model and for the first time try using photo-etch add-ons. I have ordered the White Ensign Models WEM 1/600 "Ultimate" Kriegsmarine Set 2 (PE 627). I feel like the model needs some detail as it looks good but a bit plain. I particularly think that the railings will help. I will probably not use everything but like so many things in this hobby, it will be a learning experience.