The Ship Model Forum

Looking great, Marijn.

Great job and thanks for the tips!

Marijn, fantastic work and most importantly, very inspiring. I'm curious about the dyeing and finishing process.
I am looking forward to the next procedure.

This keeps getting better and better. Really love the seascape.

That's a fantastic result!

Awesome! the seascape left me speechless as i've recently taken a picture of the sea that looks astonishingly similar ( https://u.cubeupload.com/SGm/searain.jpg). Love the floating debris and the cannon fire splashes. The level of realism you achieved is incredible.
Question: how did you manage to take such precise curvy cut-outs from the MDF?

Bravo. Keep it up!

SG

Very good ....

indeed you may be the new Mr McCaffery / Philip Reed !

BUT ...beware--I am the harbinger of Doom....!

Phew ! -- I am very glad that the MDF did not start bowing or otherwise distorting during either the sculpting or baking process...

Keep an eye on the sea-scape whilst you work on the ships-- MDF -in my experience-- no always the most stable of media I have found...

by the time the ships are painted ...and partially crewed you will know...!

very worst case scenario... the MDF may rise at the edges-- in which case -- get some 3 or better 4 mm
(ideally stainless ) steel with lots of countersunk holes
and you can start to mechanically straighten the MDF using the screws to pull it back don to the more rigid steel...
You may have to pre-curve the steel pending how much correction might be needed...
I did this with my ( axis models resin ) 1/350 Roma.......( a biiig ship on a big base )
it may also be that the long resin Roma started to curve and took the MDF with it..?!


I did that after I had mounted the ship--arghhh!!!

http://www.modelwarships.com/reviews/sh ... eview.html

All I can say is wow!

Marijn, all the weeks spent on sculpting the sea surface certainly pay off. Very nice and realistic, I'm left in awe! Miles beyond any of my capabilities for sure.

It only reminds me to the MUCH bigger diorama of the Roadsted to Texel, created by Herbert Tomesen for the museum at Oudeschild, Texel. https://www.flickr.com/photos/87332843@N00/42925815520
and:
https://nl.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bestand ... _-_RCE.jpg
Scale of that one is 1:87 throughout (Artitec being H0 buffs of course...)

I saw the vast slaps of resin being prepared at their workshop: these were cast in ca 1 by 1 metre panels in PU resin, and chipped with a hollow chisel to create the small wave effect. Very different technique therefore, the waves being typically 2cm large. I must admit I like the more smooth and mellow surface you created even better. Please keep it up!

(And to Mr. Jim Baumann: I keep all my ten fingers crossed and will burn a dozen candles for Marijn that the MDF will behave nicely in this case, and not the apocalyptic curving or bending you see in your crystal ball...)

My Tools

Many thanks everyone!

SG1 wrote:Question: how did you manage to take such precise curvy cut-outs from the MDF?

Well, I didn't make them in one cut. First I drilled and then roughly cut the holes undersized with an electric jigsaw. Something like this:


Then I sanded the edges smooth and curved with sanding drums in a Dremel, while constantly test-fitting the ship's hulls:




@ Jim: Yes, I was a bit worried too about the MDF warping during the sculpting, and especially during the baking. But there was only one way of finding out , and luckily it didn't move at all!

After surviving that, I'm not too worried about the future. It is quite a thick pile consisting of 4 sheets glued together, which should add to the stability too.
But even that is not really relevant: I plan on not using this for the actual seascape, but casting it in transparent resin. Of course, now I can be worried about that block of resin remaining stable as a base over time too...

But anyway, it would be good to keep the MDF and putty seascape stable anyway; as it is a good backup in case the resin casting fails miserably... In that case, I can still screw a steel plate to the bottom!

Milan Kuliffay wrote:I'm curious about the dyeing and finishing process.

Me too Milan! That will need some experimenting for sure...
But it will have to wait for a while. First I want to put some paint on the ships...


@ Kometa: yes, that works great too! I used something similar for the mock-up. Just this, covered with textured watercolour paper can make for a great seascape indeed. Werner De Keersmaecker does his wonderful seascapes in exactly this way: http://www.modelshipgallery.com/gallery ... index.html

But for this project, I wanted some intermediate sized waves too: smaller than the seas, but bigger than the small wavelets. Now I have several wave sizes smaller than the seas, and the wavelets still have to be added at the end (with AK water Gel).
I could not get this variation in wave sizes with the watercolour paper, so I resorted to sculpting. And since I wanted to use the Super Sculpey Firm for sculpting, which needs to be baked, I couldn't use foam as a base but went to MDF and Magic Sculp instead.
But it is good to have variation! I don't think every seascape should look the same...

BTW, I'm sure the technique I used now is not for everyone, because it takes a lot more time than the foam/watercolour paper technique. But it gives a different effect, that is hard to get in another way.


@ Maarten: I only know that diorama from David Griffith's diorama book. I hope to visit it one day, since it looks amazing. The sheer size of it alone... And it is a period I'm getting more and more interested in too! And it's not too far away, and Texel should be a great destination for a family trip.

I think their sea was a bit inspired by how Donald McNarry made his seas (and Philip Reed too): they carve it with gauges (round chisels) from a block of wood. I feel McNarry and Reed got much more realistic looking effects though, but then again they didn't have to make such large areas! The rather stylised style of the Texel diorama sea is not too bad though, it works for that diorama I think. I wish they found a way to disguise the seams between the panels a bit better though.

Marijn, the seascape is just wonderful! I would like to imitate your Magic Sculp + watercolour paper method in my current diorama, but this method seems even better!
I love the way you tackle every step of the build with the same dedication, attention to detail and no-compromise approach!

Hi Marijn

Regarding the Texel Roadstead diorama:

The dio is very impressive indeed, from my point of view mainly because of the overall impression and because of the very well researched and detailed ships. I'm afraid indeed that the realism of the sea surface left something to be desired though. I was mistaken, the panels are even 2 x 2 metres, in total eightteen of them. The entire diorama measueres 18 x 4 m. And the seams are still visible.

https://artitec.nl/plattegrond-diorama/

But it's certainly worth a visit, to the ferry it's 3 hours or so, but before you're done on Texel it's more that a day, so plan an overnight stay I advise.

Very impressive technique for the water surface. Takes courage to start all over again after finishing the first layer. I do believe it was necessary to add the smaller details "in" the sea as well. It wouldn't look right if you hadn't done that.
Love the cotton wool traces as well

I somehow missed this development for the last couple of days. Very promising !

Aren't MagicSculpt et al. a bit expensive for that purpose? Or perhaps I am overestimating the size of the scene.

Well, the ships are about 20 cm long at this scale, so the entire diorama measures ca 50 x 30 cm. Correct?

Most inspiring! At least I now have a new idea how to tackle this:



Plus small ocean disturbances

EJFoeth wrote:Most inspiring! At least I now have a new idea how to tackle this:

Plus small ocean disturbances

Now that's what I would call a nice Kelvin pattern! Based on computer simulation I presume?

Yes, without wave breaking or scale effects, quick & dirty, but good enough when appended with pics of the actual wave pattern I already planned on building up the pattern starting from these results, then add ocean waves (long and short crests) and Marijn's approach for a rough ocean surface looks better than anything else I've seen... so that is a good start

Many thanks everyone!

And thanks to Evert-Jan for notifying me that I put the wrong pic somewhere. I fixed it now, so the baking in progress is covered too:



The seascape is 40,5 by 27,5 centimetres (good estimate Maarten! ).
It took about two small sets of Magic Sculp for two attempts (so one set would have been enough). They cost about 10 to 15 euro a piece.
And I used one large set of Super Sculpey Firm, costing a bit under 20 euro, but have about 1/3 left over.
I'm sure cheaper materials can be found instead, but these are materials I am familiar with, so I like the predictability and reliability. Also I find this not be too much money for a 5 year project, especially since I haven't been buying any kits for a long time... But that's of course a personal choice.

Anyway, I'm sure the resin will be more expensive!
Just to be clear: I don't think seascapes in 1/350 always need the transparency of clear casting resin. But for this project I want to give it a try, since it will have so much stuff floating in the water. Besides what you see now, there will also be figures in the water, ropes hanging down from the ships, smaller pieces of debris, etc.

BTW, the cotton wool traces are only mock-ups to visualize the composition. I will make them at the very end of the project in a more refined way, mostly inspired by the way Werner De Keersmaecker has done them on one of his marvelous uboot scenes (also containing cotton though).

Evert-Jan, that looks very promising!
Looking forward to seeing that develop further!