Hi everyone!
Thanks, Richard, for your comments and thanks to everyone for checking in.
Today, I’m going to show you what I referred to in my last post as the ‘verdigris band’ along the waterline.
While perusing photos of LSMs during my research for this model, I came across the photo below:
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File comment: Photo of LSM 84 courtesy of USS LSM/LSMR Association and NavSource.org
LSM 84 02.jpg [ 73.48 KiB | Viewed 1110 times ]
This photo (Courtesy of USS LSM/LSMR Association and NavSource.org) shows a couple of crewmembers standing by the bow of the beached LSM-84. What I found interesting was the amount of crud that had built up in a pretty clear band along the waterline. I referred to this as verdigris in my previous post, but more accurately, it is marine growth that has dried out when exposed to air, such as during beaching. When I looked at photos of other beached LSMs, I found that although the band of sea growth wasn’t evident on every ship, it was present on many. Obviously, the presence or lack of a band of sea growth was affected by a couple of factors, such as the age of the ship, the operational use, and most recent drydocking with hull cleaning.
Initially, I was hesitant to include the 'verdigris band' on the 59.
The photos of the LSM-59 aren’t clear enough to discern whether she had this band of sea growth, but it is a safe bet she did. After all, she operated in a region of the Pacific where the environmental conditions were conducive, and in all of the photos, she looks pretty weatherbeaten and worn. As time went by, it made less sense to leave the band out; the model will be displayed with the lower hull out of the water on the beach and the rest of the hull will be heavily weathered. It didn't make sense to display the model with a pristine lower hull exposed!
It is pretty common to see a band of sea growth on ships if they've been drydocked or they're riding higher in the water due to a change in loading. However, I don't recall having seen ship models with this kind of band replicated. That's understandable, though; most ship models are way too small to bother with this kind of detail and many ship models are built as waterline models on a simulated ocean base. It is kinda rare to come across any aspect of modeling that hasn't been tackled by someone else before, but I'd never heard how anyone else had done this, so I figured I was on my own.
I began by using the photo of the 84 as my guide.
My first step was to mask off the hull approximately ¼ inch above and below the waterline, emulating the band shown in the photo of the LSM-84. Then, I had to figure out how to simulate the dried sea growth. When sea growth and crud along the waterline dries, it turns a very light green or almost white. I decided the way to simulate this was to add a large amount of white to some leftover Ocean Green. To replicate the splotchiness of the sea growth, I dry-brushed this pale green mixture in an irregular pattern along the waterline. Next, to fill in the voids in the splotchy pattern, I airbrushed a light coat of Tamiya Flat Base acrylic along the whole band. The Flat Base goes on like very thin flat white which basically 'fogs' the entire exposed band. Before the Flat Base was completely dry, I used a soft brush to disrupt the appearance of the band. Then, I removed the masking tape. Here’s a couple of photos of the model at this point:
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File comment: Stbd side of hull showing simulated sea growth band
sea growth 01.jpg [ 147.51 KiB | Viewed 1110 times ]
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File comment: Port side of hull showing simulated sea growth band
sea growth 02.jpg [ 143.08 KiB | Viewed 1110 times ]
Overall, I’m happy with how it turned out.
I still have some weathering that I intend to do to the hull, plus adding some rust effects, but the band of sea growth was a significant task that I needed to tackle before I went much further. When I'm finally completed with painting/weathering the hull, I'll be applying a coat of clear flat overall. To prevent the clear flat from adversely affecting the Flat Base, I applied a coat of Future Wax over the completed sea growth band.
Now that I’m nearing the end of the work on the hull and tank well, I’m getting to the exciting part: adding the topside details. I’ll show you how that is going in my next post.
John