The construction on my kit is straight out off box and the paint is as specified from the Tamiya paint instructions, except for the wooden deck witch I used tamiya buff, XF57.I sprayed the all over hull colour then hand painted the decks except for the helo pad and around the third 16 inch gun turret witch I masked and air brushed becouse I new I,d get a better job.The photo etch is gold medal models and so are the figures witch were an after thought becouse I,d never used them before and didn,t know I had them till I was looking through my stuff.The rigging was also an after thought becouse I never thought of putting it on,but after seeing how mutch better Peter Van Burens models look with rigging , I decided to try it and I must say , I,m a big fan of Peters models.I was going to use invisible thread but thought it would be abit out of scale so I decided to use,and wait for it,the hair off my wifes head.I didn,t yank it out of her becouse that would have been suicide, so I just got on my hands and knees and got some off the bathroom floor. I used the hair becouse it is thin,strong and a endless free supply.As far as weathering go,s all I did was brush some pastals over the ship to high light the raised detail witch I thought was anough. This is the best ship I,ve done so far and I hope you all like it too.