The three photos below are National Archives photos of the famous "Hull Model" named for the model's first owner and ship's captain at the time, Isaac Hull. The Hull Model of USF Constitution was made by the real ship's crew and presented to their captain, Isaac Hull, as a gift just after their War of 1812 victories. The model now rests in the Peabody Museum in Massachusetts. Since the model was made by actual crew members it is considered to definitively show Constitution's true War of 1812 appearance. Certainly the ship's own crew knew what their ship looked like and built an accurate representation for their captain.
Of the many injection-molded plastic kits now commercially available the Revell 1/96 scale kit most closely resembles the Hull Model.
Note that Hull Model shows that Old Ironsides only carries gun port lids at the extreme bow. Period documents confirm that Old Ironsides carried no hinged lids at this time. Those lids that were present were removable and stored below decks prior to going into action.
Also note the coloring of the masts and fighting tops (white) and yards (black) and that this model of Constitution does not carry her name on the transom.
Various sources state that when originally built her hull was not painted black, just tarred, and that she had no white gun deck stripe or any gun deck stripe at all. The contemporary artist Michel Felice Corn� was commissioned at the time to paint Constitution at Tripoli as the ship appeared eight years before the War of 1812. Note the different coloration and that the ship's name does appear on the transom.
Sometime shortly before 1809 her hull was painted black and she received a white or yellow ochre gun deck stripe painted on the four strakes between the gun deck gun ports achieving her now familiar black hull with white stripe appearance. Her gun deck stripe was alternately white and yellow ochre throughout the War of 1812. Constitution acted as a raider during that war. Her log and other documents state that her crew changed her coloring from time to time partly as a deceptive measure to confuse her pursuers as to her actual identity.
The painting and a cropped detail of it below are also by Michel Felice Corn�. The painting depicts Constitution's approach to HMS Guerriere in preparation for battle. It was commissioned as part of a set by Captain Hull. The paintings of that set were supervised by Constitution's purser Thomas Chew. The set of Corn� paintings are considered to be accurate representations of the ship at the time of the battle, both in color and detail. This is because the artist had access to the ship and her crew, several members of which he interviewed. Corn� personally visited the ship shortly after the battle and he took extensive notes regarding details and coloring from which he developed his paintings.
Here are some significant observations about the ship's appearance and coloring as depicted by Corn� in this painting and others in the set. Note:
- no gunport lids
- black hull, beak and transom background
- yellow ochre gun deck stripe (in other paintings of the set, the forward end of the stripe is a semi-circle terminating just ahead of the forward-most gunport, aft of the anchor line hawsepipes)
- yellow ochre lower masts
- natural wood upper masts
- white beak decorations
- white gallery decorations
- red gallery window frames
- pale green ship's boats, which may be the same green color applied to the inner bulwarks
- white and yellow/gold colors of the transom decorations
- red transom window frames
Also note that, like the Hull Model, the name "CONSTITUTION" does not appear on the transom.
The coloring of her masts and yards also changed a bit during these early years. In all of the Corn� paintings, the lower masts are painted yellow ochre, not white as they are today. It is difficult to make out the color of the yards but several, if not all, appear very dark, possibly black, a common practice at the time.
). I kinda like to work messy, if you mess around with the paint or cut in the desk, it's not that hard. It wasn't clean so it's no disaster if there's any drop of paint more or less on it. 
