HMS Victory and Le Redoutable at Trafalgar (1/300)

[GewoonWouter]

wow, seascape underway...just one word: ace!

[Rui Matos]

Hi Marijn (et al)

Excellent seascape tutorial for the brave ones who want to replicate the method.
In my particular case, Das modelling paste and watercolour paper are still prefered methods (but I am working in 1/700).

I have found your "sea" very realistic, and I guess that even backed, those three layers of MDF plus the magig sculpt will hold their shape.
Which brings the resin sea base to the discussion...
Considering the dimensions of it (unless you fix the resin part to a solid base), have you considered Marijn, that the resin may get deformed?

Loving this project!
I still hate you, so everything is the same....

Cheers
Rui

[marijn van gils]

Thanks guys!

Yes Rui, watercolour paper will do fine, especially in 1/700. In fact, some of the best seascapes I have seen have been made with that technique (by Werner De Keersmaecker).

I'm not too worried about the resin as a whole warping or deforming heavily, as it will be cast as a thick solid block. I will glue it to a piece of MDF anyway, but I'm not sure that would help a lot.
But it may shrink a little over time. So I will fill the gaps around the ships, boats etc. with something that remains a little flexible: acrylic gel. And if it cracks in the future, I can always fill those cracks again in the same way...
But I'm taking a gamble indeed!


Now, the last detail before painting:

One thing I was never really happy with, was the pilaster detail on the stern and quarter galleries of Victory. This photo is of course heavily enlarged, but also to the naked eye it looks notably cruder than everything around it:



I thought �Oh well, I�ll try to refine it a bit when painting, and it will be fine�, but deep down I wished I had replaced these at the beginning of the build.

But then Dafi 3D-desiged and -printed these pilasters for his 1/100 scale Victory: viewtopic.php?f=59&t=99050&start=820#p938177
And he was so generous to propose downscaling them for me!

I didn�t have to think twice about that, so I accepted immediately!
Of course, this meant I had to cut and scrape away the kit detail:





Next, I made paper templates to get the sizes and shapes correct, scanned them, and send that to Dafi.
He then did his magic, and I received this in the mail (with some spares too):


Beautiful!

I installed the parts, puttied over the edges, and added some stretched sprue mouldings on top of that. Then I primed again.

Some before and after pics:






What a difference!
Thank you so much Dafi!

[JIM BAUMANN]

Marijnn wrote;

>>> I thought �Oh well, I�ll try to refine it a bit when painting, and it will be fine�, ....<<<

Now there is a sentiment I can identify with....

>>> but deep down I wished I had replaced these at the beginning of the build..... <<<

and again ...!
It is so easy( and tempting! ) at the beginning of a build to very effectively
ignore crudities in either the kits or of one's own making....
and then regret later.
Bravo-- the before and afters images prove the rule!

JB

[marijn van gils]

Thanks Jim!


And that is so true!
Kits always look so much better before you start going down into the details of a build, and the research...

I have to admit, with this detail it was also a matter of not readily having a solution in my mind, and therefore postponing dealing with it. Scratchbuilding would be very difficult and time-consuming, and I would never be able to get this level of detail and regularity. But then new technologies (and a generous forum member!) came along...

[wefalck]

The better is always the enemy of the good ... yes, 3D-printing will push 'scratch'-building into new spheres as well.

It happens to me virtually every time I look into a kit: on the first glance it looks nice, but when you examine it in detail, there are so many things to improve, that you rather start from scratch.

[Martocticvs]

Vast improvement! Really looking forward to seeing some colour on this now

[wefalck]

Talking about making waves - a bit of self-advertising, here is my take (or rather make) of it; viewtopic.php?f=13&t=158123&start=220 (you have to sroll down a bit).

[marijn van gils]

Thanks guys!

Really looking forward to seeing some colour on this now

Me too! It's getting close now... In fact, I airbrushed primer on all the parts this weekend... But gray can hardly be called 'colour'!

Talking about making waves - a bit of self-advertising, here is my take (or rather make) of it; viewtopic.php?f=13&t=158123&start=220 (you have to sroll down a bit).

That looks great! I like the colour variation.
Good to see the model in its 'environment" too!

[marijn van gils]

And voila: 50 shades of grey!
(well, in fact only one: Tamiya grey surface primer...)

[Devin]

Impressive collection of parts!

[marijn van gils]

Thanks Devin!

[dafi]

Oh that hurts! I had to be so careful with these fragile parts, and what does he do? HE BREAKS THEM!!!



It was my pleasure Marijn and a big joy to give this small assistance, I still love this project, another master piece of yours!

All the best, DAniel

[Rui Matos]

Thanks Jim!


And that is so true!
Kits always look so much better before you start going down into the details of a build, and the research...

I have to admit, with this detail it was also a matter of not readily having a solution in my mind, and therefore postponing dealing with it. Scratchbuilding would be very difficult and time-consuming, and I would never be able to get this level of detail and regularity. But then new technologies (and a generous forum member!) came along...

Hi Marijn, Jim, et al

Well, that what (scale modelling) friends are for!
Although not a major detail, it really improves the look of the ship!
Luckily it doesn't stand out (in a bad way), because you have done a wonderfull detailling job in everything else!
Thank you for sharing this jewell of a project!

Cheers,
Rui

[marijn van gils]

Thanks Daniel and Rui!

[SG1]

Wow! terrific work. Congratulations to you and Dafi, the results of the combined effort are amazing.
Can't wait to see the painting process happening. Painting is one of your many excellences, so am looking forward to it. (Am also eagerly waiting for the figures production, that's gonna be another great sight, but thats a different story )

Cheers,

SG

[wefalck]

I have withdrawal symptoms - two months without update ?

[pascalemod]

And voila: 50 shades of grey!
(well, in fact only one: Tamiya grey surface primer...)

Tamiya surface grey primer, the unsung hero of modelling.

Looks super organised, something I can never do. Looking so much forward to seeing it in color!

[marijn van gils]

Thanks guys!


Indeed, it has been two months already�

Probably I haven�t posted any updates yet because, frankly, everything is looking rather ugly at the moment�
The base-coated model is always my least favourite stage of a model. It lacks all the life, depth and sharpness that subsequent layers of paint will add.

But anyway, it may be better to also show this stage, because it is of course part of the process. Ugly is not necessarily uninteresting�
And anyway, base-coating also has it challenges. And for this project, it is proving to be quite a lot of work too.

The first month, I have been airbrushing. And the last month, I have been correcting and refining the airbrushed colours by brush, and base-coating details by brush. And it will still take me some time to get that finished�

I actually spent most of the airbrushing time by masking. This is Le Redoutable, masked for the black to be airbrushed, which is the 5th of 6 colours (after in that order: the lower deck tan, interior white, ochre sides, and yellow stern and bow. And before a dark brown base for the lower hull copper sheeting):


There is a lot of difficult detail to mask, requiring lots of tiny pieces cut from masking tape, and therefore lots of time:


A lot of detail is too small to mask, so I just mask it of completely and add the black detail by brush later, like here on the quarter gallery:


An illustration of how masking and airbrushing only gets you part way there.
I masked and airbrushed the larger black areas on the stern of Le Redoutable (as a reminder of the scale: the mounting handle at the bottom is a regular size toothpick):


But here you can see that the edges still need a lot of corrections and tidying up. That is much of what I�m doing at the moment.



I also had some trouble with paint lifting with the masking tape:


Worst was on Le Redoutable after spraying the black, because I had left the previous layers of tape on too long (4 or 5 days):


I used the yellow Tamiya tape and reduced the tack of it even further, but now I learned to leave it on the model only for 1 day maximum, not more!

Anyway, every (modelling) problem has a solution!
I hand-painted the �naked� spots:


This mostly served to stabilize the fragile edges of the flaked areas (and was good exercise to match the colours), because of course the edges of the flakes will still show:


Solution: sanding the edges, and overpainting again. And repeating if necessary.
Sanding is done, and I�m now in the process of painting.


I left the stern and quarter galleries of Victory completely in ochre. All black areas and details were added by brush. Simply easier and faster�
Here, the lower counter is hand-painted, and the black behind the balusters, and the black stripes in the mouldings above and below the balusters. Some black paint (actually dark grey) of course already crept in the detail of the balusters, but proper shading (and highlighting) will follow later.


Here, most of the black areas have been painted, following the raised detail of the model. On the lower corners, additional detail still has to be painted on. Also the raised detail will receive shading and highlighting later on, which should add to their sharpness.


And finally an example of how hand-painting detail is not a matter of a superhuman steady hand and precision, but mostly of correcting again and again until you are happy with the result.
Here, you can see plenty of blue smudges on the ochre and black, even though I painted as precisely as I could:


Solution: paint over the smudges with the ochre and black paint. And then overpaint in blue again the ochre and black smudges that were inevitable made on the blue. And so on�
The painting of the blue stripes on the beakhead timbers followed the same process.
Again, all of these details will receive shading later on, which will sharpen them, and the borders between colours.

[dafi]

Most wonderful!

Nice as it looks that you took different colors for the yellow ockre for the different ships

Anyway do not bother too much for the correct color of the patches. My estimation - seen by the missing industrial standards - is, that the outside of the ships must have been a patchwork of different colors, as I suppose that each barrel had a different shade ...

XXXDAn