The Ship Model Forum

My favorite figure so far.

Of course, the day is young.

mine too, the sniping marine

Beautifully done - rich in detail and I feel the story being told as I study the photos. Excellent work!

I begin to feel the shots whizzing past

What he said!

Thank you very much everyone!

wefalck wrote: Fri Feb 06, 2026 3:55 am I begin to feel the shots whizzing past

Thank you! That is a great compliment for me, because in a diorama, the 'feel' is for me always one of the most important things.

Rui Matos wrote: Fri Feb 06, 2026 6:36 amPS: Sorry for the typo on your name Marijn

No problem Rui! I'm used to it, and I've seen much much worse. Not to mention the pronunciation! Well, it is simply not an easy name for non-Dutch-speakers...

ModelMonkey wrote: Fri Feb 06, 2026 7:52 am My favorite figure so far.

Bombastically good.
In the truest sense of the word.

Officers from HMS Hood survey the battle in a 50ft steam picket while a range of pulling boats prepare for a sneak attack.

It was very good to view the models up close and difficult to believe how small they really are.

TY for sharing EJFoeth



Cheers,
Rui

This is how Marijn is able to achieve such amazing detail.

This is how my model sees me
XXXDAn

PS: Wonderfull work as always MArijn!

Lets not lose the thread ey. Looks amazing - love seeing them side by side.

Hello everyone,

Sorry for my very long absence!
Besides the usual ‘life’-stuff, this was mostly due to me tackling the sails. This was a first for me and required some experimentation and messing around. Because of that, I haven’t been taking in-progress photos in a systematic way, and therefore had nothing to post really…

But now I have finished the sails and rigging of the bowsprit and foremast!
(Except for the fore braces; these will follow at the end because they would be in the way of the mainmast rigging.)

So, I will simply show the results for now.
But now that I have the process down, I’m already working on step-by step photo’s for the mainmast to show the techniques.

I’ll already let you know the basic material of the sails: silkspan, basecoated with acrylics (I mainly followed Philip Reed’s techniques) and weathered with oil paints.






























A nice characteristic of the silkspan paper is that it is translucent when lit from behind:

Outstanding.

More model making wizardry. Amazing work!

Ah, that treats a subject that I have been poring about for quite some time, as I want to create a similar aspect - minus the battle damage.

Some 50 years ago, I used the silk fabric 'silkspan' (as used to cover larger aircraft models), soaked in gouache paint, but switched to acrylics, when these became available and the to 'silkspan' paper, when starting to work on smaller scales. However, the material covered first in varnish (which was also used to glue together the panels of the sails, became rather to stiff for simulating limp or gathered sails.

I have some idea of how I plan to go about the process now, but it would be nice to see a detailed description of the process you used

SMASHING! literally

Superb

Just when you thought this project couldn't possibly get better...it did. Wow.

Thank you very much everyone!
I'm glad the sails seem to be working out.

wefalck wrote: Mon Jul 27, 2026 9:12 am Ah, that treats a subject that I have been poring about for quite some time, as I want to create a similar aspect - minus the battle damage.

Some 50 years ago, I used the silk fabric 'silkspan' (as used to cover larger aircraft models), soaked in gouache paint, but switched to acrylics, when these became available and the to 'silkspan' paper, when starting to work on smaller scales. However, the material covered first in varnish (which was also used to glue together the panels of the sails, became rather to stiff for simulating limp or gathered sails.

I have some idea of how I plan to go about the process now, but it would be nice to see a detailed description of the process you used

That's the plan!

In order to not kill the translucency completely, I do use thin coats of arcylic paint. That may help to keep the flexibility necessary for shaping?

In this scale, I don't glue panels together, but only draw them lightly with a pencil. That will probably help too.
I do glue the reinforcing bands on (leach linings, buntline cloths, middel bands, mast cloths, tabling, etc.), which does create some stiffness, and I do notice the sails are more difficult to shape were the silkspan is doubled this way. I use white glue, but I guess the result is the same as with varnish in this respect...

Shaping is done while softening the paper with water. The ability of silkspan to not fall apart when wetted is the main reason for using this material for me. Otherwise, I think I would prefer to use a more 'normal' type of paper like Jim Bauman does.