I recently finished building Maquette's 1/400 Icebreaker Arctika. The kit comes with a full hull but I needed to waterline it for a diorama. Molded in medium gray the plastic is niether brittle or soft. The instructions are simplified exploded views and leave placement of some parts up to the builder's imagination. Rails are molded in and will need to be cut off if photo etched railing is desired.

The masts are molded in solid plastic and were replaced with crane sections from Gold Medal Models 1/400 PE sets. The radars are solid plastic as well and were also replaced with spare screening from the same PE set. The searchlighte were replaced with white metal spares from my parts bin. They're 1/350 but look fine when in place.

The colors I used were flat black for the hull, Model Master II Russian Signal Red for the superstructure and Euro I green for the decks. The decals are thin and will need a coat of future to strengthen them. The base is made of 1/4" styrofoam with a coat of acrylic gel medium on top. On top of that is a layer of gloss acrylic laquer sprinkled with baking powder. A few coats of thinned white glue was then sprayed to help hold the powder in place.

I found that a good coat of this thinned glue on the hull followed by spraying across the "snow" in the direction of the hull caused the powder to lift in small chunks where it was thickest and stick to the hull giving a good rendition of packed ice. In some areas thinned glue was brushed on the hull and powder sprinkled over it to replicate built up ice/snow. It's a nice kit for $10 (I ordered mine from Squadron). It's quite large too 14 1/2" long and 2 3/4" wide, almost as long as my 1/350 scale Brooklyn class cruiser.

If you like unusual subjects I recommend this one-cheap too!