Here are some photos of Trumpeter's USS Pittsburgh kit, built as USS Columbus CA-74. My dad served on her in WWII, and stayed on long enough to watch from her decks as Howard Hughes flew the Spruce Goose for its one and only flight after the war. I built it pretty much straight out of the box. It's painted with Testors enamels, shaded with dark gray pastels, and sealed with flattened Future. I still have yet to build a water base and a case for it, but thanks to some help I received from Fred and Monty, I will be tackling those next.
I apologize for the poor photography again...I need to work on that.
I used thin elastic thread for the rigging, and winged it after looking at some photos.
The tiny sea planes were assembled and sprayed sea blue all over. I then flipped them over and used silly putty to cover the top halves of their fuselage, wings, stabilizers and tailfins, and sprayed the lower halves very light gray. I really like my airbrush, and didn't want to brush paint them if I could help it! The silly putty is really a great way to mask irregular surfaces. Progress has been admittedly slow, I started working on this in early June. I think the kit is pretty nice. This is my first Trumpeter kit, and it certainly will not be my last!