The Ship Model Forum

Hi

This is a continuation of the conundrum idea. The same time I made that I also simultaneously made two smaller T45 Destroyer scratchbuilt items to use up small pieces of plywood that otherwise I would just throw away. They are OK but not brilliant and doing all three at the same time means I do not want to look at another T45 for some time. The two smaller T45 scratchbuilt ovals are 190mm wide, 123mm high and stick out 80mm.

One of the T45 is coming straight at you so facing and the other is more an angled lengthwise approach with foreshortening. One is HMS Duncan the other I made HMS Defender. As I had been mucking around with the Ships crests for some time, adding printed ones to the side of Portholes, changing their shape for my submarine ones and then utilysing it for the surround of the Conundrum, I decided to one motif under the picture and the other in the sea under the ship. I also decided to copy the rope surround in the crest as you can see.

Now I'd promised My Brother for sometime a porthole and after a false start with USS Iowa at Portsmouth in 1986ish from a drunken conversation (which I will finish sometime) I finally decided to do Ships He went to sea on.  The porthole type pictures are largish due to the size of the 1/700, 1/600 Ships and can dominate the room, not something ordinary people would necessarily like. So I wanted something smaller which His other half would not mind too much round the house, so decided to explore the small arts and crafty scratchbuilt T45 approach to fit in with their decor, plus his last Ship does not have a model in a small scale, T22 batch 2.
I came up with the final design shown in the pictures.
I make everything including the foreshortened ships (balsa wood adding card, etch and modified plastic bits for upper deck stuff), where less is more, going for the aesthetic feel of the Ship and not actually a lifelike exact copy or model of the Ship in question.
I call them NOTOTO's as not a model as such in the conventional sense as foreshortened, not a painting, not a diorama, so Not One Thing Or The Other (NOTOTO).  The top is all about the Ship the scale being something daft I came up with so that for My Brothers Ships they are smaller than 130mm so they fit on the oval, has crest, plus hints to RN's past History.  The bottom “Dogs Bollock” is all about the person on the Ship, intended to be politically incorrect (have you met ex-matelots) especially the little booklet with Navy slang I put with it to explain all the bits and to tie the persons naval career together. Once they have all their Sea going drafts up on the wall they have got the full Dog’s Bollocks – nice ring to it and I like old sayings and it seems apt (with the benefit it will upset all the lefty wokey moaning liberal - huh better stop there). My Brother gave me permission to put them on model warships and scratchbuilds undocumented is a quiet backwater for people doing their own thing.

Presently I am making a few, with a few adjustments to technique so better looking Ships, photographing as I go along so anyone can build their own if they fancy it or for their friends.  I consider them to be slightly dangerous as for the individual they represent its a period in their past bringing back various memories, good and bad so need to be treated with care if making them for someone. If your making them for yourself its therapeutic in a way.
As I tend to flick from one thing to another trying to solve various problems on the way it might take me some time to assemble the HOW TO as I have got an interesting idea to make submarine ones but time will tell – and mistakes, trial and error. 

I realise they are a tad arty farty, the rope work is especially relaxing though and the naval crown is still a work in progress using resin but as I think of them NOTOTO, not a problem, passes the time in an interesting possibly pointless way. 

All the Best Shaun 

These are the NOTOTO's proper, My Brothers Ships.

Shaun

Amazing and creative. Nice work!

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We like our history sanitized and theme-parked and self-congratulatory, not bloody and angry and unflattering. - Jonathan Yardley