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Nikos Kosmadakis
19 articles

Zara passing Castello Aragonese Entering Taranto 1/350

June 29, 2022 · in Ships · · 10 · 1.4K

A couple of years ago I won one of the monthly competitions here in imodeler. The prize was the Zara kit from Trumpeter, which I promised to build and post. Here it is! The scene is inspired by the great work of Lou Carabot.

The kit is built out of the box with some minor addition, mainly the awing stays and cables. It has enough photoetch to produce a nice model, so no after market stuff was purchased.

The was built from styrofoam, then covered in acrylic wall plaster. Once dry, it was painstakingly scribed to produce the bricks. (They are a bit out of scale at 1mm height but it was insane to go any smaller). It was weathered with oils and after drying another layer of plaster was placed only on the scribed lines.

The bridge and the tram were designed in Adobe Illustrator (by looking at photos, I didn't have any plans, so it is not a precise depiction) then laser cut on black card. Once assembled, like photoetch, they are very rigid.

Palm trees are made of wire and paper. The sailor figures were a first attempt at designing and 3d printing at home. They came out quite good, I just need to make more poses now.

This must have been the most challenging project to date, but I am very pleased with the outcome. Hope you guys like it!

Reader reactions:
19  Awesome

46 additional images. Click to enlarge.


10 responses

  1. Absolutely superb, Νίκο!
    The level of detail is amazing.
    Congratulations my friend!

  2. Poli orea! It's a great diorama! Love the tramway and the beautiful bridge, that is gorgeous.

  3. Amazing work, really well done!

  4. Nikos...although not a ship modeler, I really like your model and its setting. Well-done.

    How long did it take you to complete this project?

  5. This is exceptional, Nikos (@nikosmadakis). A well detailed diorama is always a treat to look at. Well done.

  6. An excellent diorama, Nikos @nikosmadakis
    Everything on this build looks superb.

  7. Fantastic work Nikos.
    Worthy of a movie set. Well done.

  8. Very impressive! And each part of the overall to a similar quality standard (hard to do). I like this a lot.

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