1/350 SOVIET CRUISER MOLOTOV WW2 – scratch build

This is my first ‘ scratch build ‘ and it's taken me a good 5 months. I have done a couple of couple of conversions before such as the POLA / GRAF SPEE ( which I will post next in her pre-River Plate raiding look which includes ALL the weird and wonderful extras she had in real life…fake funnel..fake guns etc ) but took the plunge with this build. I fell in love with this cruiser and have always thought it criminal no modelling manufacturers have done a kit version. Soviet Cold War ships are feat heavily by the likes of Trumpeter but WW2 Soviet ships are greatly ignored. The hull is from a Hobbyboss Pola which I had to raise the bow/stern plus of course chop the nose off to get the correct angle as the pola's is more cut vertically/almost straight down. The rear had to be squared off also..and lengthened as the Molotov was longer. As for the main bats, citadel, masts etc they are all made from plastic card..brass pipes, green stuff, some spare parts from kits that had to be converted etc ( I used highlighters for the two smoke stacks ). Scaling was really tough at times. Fortunately I have the vid game world of warships legends to help out with that one where I can view hundreds of warships in 3D with zoom. The scaling is mostly correct but does deviate a bit in a few sections. The rear citadel area for example should be longer! I just didn't have the space so had to compromise. The camo scheme on hull is pretty much taken from the best photos I could find of her and replicated. It's hard to know whether much camo was carried over for all the upper areas as you can see in the photo included it's mostly dark. So comprise again between the real thing and letting your imagination/judgement take you. Again there is no photo of her to my knowledge of her port side scheme. Only starboard so gave me a great opportunity to be creative on that side. The old school ‘ TV Ariel ‘ on top of the rear mast was real fiddly but I simply couldn't leave that off. The majority of rigging is all on but not all of it. I do have a soul after all haha. Was pleased with some of the small details and how they turned out such as the two ‘ Vickers ‘ AA mounts and the AA mounts on the main bats. I'll be honest this has beem at times absolute hell for me and I almost gave up a few times. Thank god I saw it through. I now have a ship that you simply cannot purchase…anywhere in kit format ( unless it's made out of cardboard ) to be proud of.

Thanks for reading Captains

8 additional images. Click to enlarge.