Hey all,
I just completed the 1:400 USS Helena. This is my 4th ship so far and I am still learning! A couple things I learned on this one:
1. Patience with painting edge lines. If I worked on my technique early, the ship would look a lot better (trust me, the pictures give it too much credit, hehehe). Water down the paint to a large degree and allow the paper to soak in the paint.
2. I am a big fan of strip styrene! It bends beautifully and glues really well. I'm sure all of you know about this already!
3. If I want inspiration, I visit the USS New Jersey only about an hour away from me. I visited it yesterday, and I couldn't wait to get back to my card models!
4. I still don't have the rigging thing down yet. I use super glue, yet I'm sure there are better techniques.
5. The JSC Helena is missing the flags, so I had to copy the one off of the USS North Carolina.
6. Having an original photo of the real ship can show corrections to the model. The USS Helena had an extended foremast, something the model did not. I also placed the flag as it was flown in 1943, right before the ship was lost.
7. Oh, and I love card models of ships!! 
-Ski
