Hello all!
When I restarted modelling after some years of other interests, I took the chance to think about doing absolutely every project I wanted to built for years. One of my dearest projects was a display of Port Arthur at the start of 1905, as seen here. It must be 25 years now when I first saw a colored picture of japanese soldiers standing on what seems to be Monument Hill, looking at the battered russian ships down in the mud... and dreamed of doing a display of this picture.
All my work is done in 1/6000 scale exclusively, this spares a lot of room / time / money /detail and still (with some exaggeration) catches everthing I want to depict. This way I have the possibility to really do all this stuff (well, over quite a long period of time... as I have kids and work and a live completely independent from modelling) without having to think much about storage place. Most of the scenery above will fit into a smal display case of 159 x 68mm.
I like to combine different forms of modelling. On the ship building side, I can't think of working any other way than with my hands. I have not the slightest interest of doing my work digitally as I like the physical work way to much. So, every ships is done using classical scratchbuilding and is then cast in resin. For now, I have done the large ships except for 'Bayan'. I have a large collection of smaller boats and tugs, so I will have no problem putting together a lively scene. For the depiction of the wrecks I plan to remove the boats, turn the turrets (and depict them exploded!) where needed and add damage and wear. Plus, I have to rework the rear decks of 'Pobeda' and remove the aft fighting mast.
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Port Arthur 01.jpg [ 268.88 KiB | Viewed 1742 times ]
For the harbour scene, I chose a whole different approach and do everything digitally. I had too many projects that died of a work overload, so I took my CAD-Tool and worked some 10 hours to do a complete file to simply print it. I used a large collection of images and maps, thanks to the russian internet where 'digging through the archival crates' seems to be a common pastime. Later, I will arrange the single pieces on a textured waterbase and add the coastline by sculpting and carving. I plan to add detail and structure where needed, lets see what the printing company provides me with. And then, I will have a steep learning curve with all those techniques of weathering and shading...
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Port Arthur 02.JPG [ 51.71 KiB | Viewed 1742 times ]
Cheers! Christian