Alaska class cruisers rework

I bought some 1/96 scale Floating Drydock plans and found out I can measure the physical plans with a ruler to get the correct scale. Hilarity ensued and six weeks later I finally have something presentable... I believe this might be the most accurate drawing (in terms of scale) ever posted here. I started with the old Alaska drawing and ended up basically just redrawing the entire thing using the yard plans to get the correct dimensions. So, to those of you drawing real ships in 30 minutes or less and calling it "thorough"... take note. This drawing was not a trace but rather me sitting in my apartment alone with a ruler and some yard plans and actually drawing the ship using the real dimensions. It also resulted in me literally redrawing almost every USN part on this ship...

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And finally:

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A "what if" drawing of Hawaii if it had been completed. I styled it after the late-war and immediate post-war combatants I've drawn; lots of HF whips, canopies over the conning stations, large hull number, etc. The forward superstructure was reworked on Hawaii and I have drawn it to the best of my ability given the very limited information (one grainy photograph). The SK has been replaced with an SK-2 and I am still figuring out how I can mount an SP fighter direction radar on the stack somewhere. The light AA fit has been reduced in places. An SC-1 Seahawk of VCS-17 is on the catapult.

The main change we have "proof" of is the replacement of the foremost 20mm tubs with a single 40mm quad in a tub with a Mk.51 director. The rest is entirely imagination.

For reference, here's the evolution of my Alaska class drawings from start to finish:

2008, in a non-Shipbucket scale I can't remember:
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2008, drawn for Shipbucket using a very poorly scaled Conway's drawing:
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2010, redrawn from Friedman's Cruisers which was still slightly inaccurate:
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MS State Guard - 08 March 2014 - 28 January 2023

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Colo is to be applauded for using the ruler method. Many an hour I've spent that way. You also get the satisfaction that every single pixel is your own work and not traced. Inaccuracies can creep in though, especially with smaller-scale plans, but it forms a good part of the artist's arsenal of artistic methods.
A nice reworking of a classic US ship, one of the few US ship's that actually look good to me.

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One of the best efforts I have seen here and there are a lot of very good ones so it tells a lot. Also applaud for the time taken to do this awesomeness! BZ

Impressive.

If that's the new standard, I quit.

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GD

Very impressiv, especially on the details. I'm looking forward to the finished version.

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a really impressive and accurate job Colo, i love your works on the USN cruisers, the Alaskas were really handsome ships, as your drawing is!

Thanks all. I'm glad to see I am not the only one who has taken a ruler to paper to scale drawings before.

Also, I think what I did was WAY overkill for Shipbucket. The plans I bought were 1/96 scale, and I received five sheets (outboard profile, plan, port side superstructure and faired lines, plus individual sections and plans for each superstructure level). Each sheet is almost twelve feet long and four feet high. At that scale, 1/8" on paper equals one foot in real life. But it's very nice being able to know with absolute mathematical certainty that your drawing is accurate!

So yes - I only went this far because I like this ship and want it to be as accurate as possible! As I look at it today I am already catching problem areas so expect another revision shortly.

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Alaska class cruisers rework

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