If there’s room for speculation about the height of the bulwarks, I think I might leave them as they are - though it makes sense that they would be higher and built up in war times. Maybe when the time comes I’ll have gathered enough courage to make them, who knows…
The wheel, on the other hand, would be a minor addition - plenty of aftermarket, better looking items. That’s the kind of stuff I’ll add to the model without a doubt!
I remember doing this kit as a kid in the late 60’s. Yours is a damn site better than mine. Looks great…
Rdiaz take a look at Pete Coleman’s Airfix Heller Victory site. It’s got all kinds of great information about the model and what the possibilities are.
Beautiful build!
Mike
RDiaz,
I think your model is really beautiful! You’ve done a great job on the painting/weathering look and it just sings to me.
Mike
Thanks a lot gentlemen!
I’m concentrated on stern painting right now, it’s so small I can’t do it cleanly, even using toothpicks! Guess magnifying glasses are in order…
Yeah, the building order I’m following is total chaos, but I did it to break up the monotony.
On my way to work and my Heller kit is already waiting for me there! [<:o)]
There is an interesting feature on the Heller model. It does not contain the entry port found on virtually every other plastic kit of the Victory. I do wish, however, that Heller would have included the higher forecastle bulwarks carried by Victory at Trafalgar. These are a feature of the Calder Craft kit, but that kit is so @#&%$ expensive. Anyway, good luck with the Heller kit!
Bill
I am probably on the minority, but I prefer the aesthetics of the ship without entry ports and lower forecastle bulkheads. The moulded timberheads, however, don’t look that good - I think they should be replaced. But after inspection I think I really like the Heller kit. It’s more intimidating than I expected (man, those cannons.I thought they were comprised of less parts!) but I’m really looking forward to building it. The 1/147 Constitution and 1/75 Pinta come first though, and I intend to get both fully rigged…
RDiaz, you’re not alone. I’m inclined to agree, in fact. The entry ports she has now are beautiful, but it looks to me like the weight of the evidence is against their having been there in 1805.
I know there’s been a lot of argument in various quarters about them. A lot of people seem to believe in them rather emotionally. But I’ve looked at quite a few paintings and photos of the ship prior to her restoration (in the early twentieth century), and I have yet to find a contemporary picture that shows the entry ports.
The big model in the National Maritime Museum, apparently built after her refit shortly before Trafalgar, doesn’t have them. (It does have several other notable features I haven’t seen elsewhere, though.) The big painting by J.M.W. Turner doesn’t have them. The Clarkson-Stanfield panorama of Trafalgar doesn’t seem to have them (though there’s a brushstroke that just might be an entry port, but looks more like a wisp of smoke). Not one of the old paintings reproduced in Basil Greenhill’s and John McKay’s book shows them. The McKay drawings show them, but Dr. Greenhill’s text doesn’t mention them.
The one primary source I know of that shows the entry ports is the other contemporary model of the ship in the National Maritime Museum - the model that apparently shows her in her “as-built” condition. That’s a rather dubious source. It’s an established fact that not all actual ships matched their “Board Room Models” (which often were built before the ships were), and we know she underwent lots of modifications between 1765 and 1805.
I lean in the direction of believing that the ornamented entry ports were added in the 1920s. But I have no proof of that whatsoever.
An interesting point: the people responsible for the upkeep of the ship herself have been remarkably silent on this matter. I know they hired a carver who (superbly) made new canopies over the entry ports for her pre-2005 restoration. And several publications issued by those folks show the entry ports.
Dr. R.C. Anderson, who supervised the restoration in the 1920s, admitted flat out that the low forecastle bulwarks were “a mistake for which I must bear my share of the blame.” He said that research had established that the bulwarks were raised during the refit shortly before Trafalgar, but the researchers revealed their findings just after Dr. Anderson and his team had finished building the low, knee-high ones. They hesitated (understandably) to scrap work they’d just finished, and “the result, while wrong historically, is certainly pleasing to the eye.”
I wonder if those entry ports resulted from some similar circumstances.
That Calder-Jotika kit is a remarkable one. (Big caveat: I’ve never seen it outside the box.) The original release had the low forecastle bulwarks. But everybody who bought it was invited to subscribe to an information service, in which Calder/Jotika sent out pieces of new information about the ship as it was discovered. (Now that’s what I call a real scale model company!) The kit as it’s being marketed now apparently has the raised bulwarks. (Both new and old versions have the entry ports. That subject seems to be something that manufacturers and the people responsible for the ship are careful to avoid.)
Lots of people know a great deal more about H.M.S. Victory than I do, and if one of them happens to read this post and offers some evidence I haven’t heard about I’ll be delighted to read it. (How about it, Forum? Does anybody out there know of a piece of actual evidence that those entry ports were there in 1805?)
As for building a model of her…well, I think I’ll leave that to somebody else. Even if I could afford that Calder kit, I’m not at all sure I could finish it (to an acceptable standard) in this lifetime. The grand old magazine Model Shipwright sent me one of the Heller kits for review when it was initially issued, in the late seventies; I kept it for several years, but when I moved from Virginia to North Carolina I gave it away. I built lots of models of that ship when I was a kid, and I’m really more interested in less popular (or, to be less courteous, less hackneyed) subjects these days. But anybody who tackles either of those kits has my very best wishes. Either of them has the potential to be turned into a magnificent model.
What Dr. R.C. Anderson said about the bulwarks is what pushes me to leave them knee high. They are just more pleasing to the eye IMHO. I can live with historic inaccuracies which are not 100% certain to be actual inaccuracies, if they make the model look better… I guess that depends on the standards of each individual modeler. Perhaps the higher bulwarks were added at the end of the 1803 refit and at some point in history the ship looked like the Heller model, though not floating -who knows?
Thanks a lot for the valuable information!
I have an interesting idea . . . I would love to see a kit of the Victory as she was originally built, with an ornate and elaborate open stern gallery, more elaborate quarter galleries, no entry ports, shoulder high forecastle and stern bulwarks, and a more traditional paint arrangement. Gold wreaths circled the upper gun ports against a royal field, black above the water line to the first wale, the rest, yellow ochre. It would be an interesting contrast with more traditional models of the ship.
I have to agree with John . . . if I had the money to purchase the Calder Craft Victory, I believe I would opt instead for their HMS Agamemnon as something different and more unusual. After all, how many kits exist of 64-gun ships-of-the-line? www.agesofsail.com lists the Victory at $1,199.00 and the Agamemnon at $1,099.00.
Bill
Roberto,
Have you considered building the Airfix 1/180 HMS VIctory? It is larger than the Revell kit, give more options because all of the three gundeck cannon are mounted as dummy cannon with seperate port lids, and is equally well-detailed. It is just a thought.
Bill
The shape of the knee of the head in that kit bugs me. It ends prematurely, before reaching the tip of the head rails, and as a result the figurehead sits too low and the entire bow looks… weird. Also, I think it has raised planking joints?
Anyways, that would be a fourth Victory kit… on a collection of seven kits. I need to find a different subject! [:P]
Best I could do with the stern… so small! From a distance it looks great, but close ups are depressing.
Any suggestions on how to paint such ultrafine detail? Fortunately the 1/100 is way bigger and 5/0 brushes and toothpicks should do…
Roberto,
I have used several methods in my life. One is to paint the details first, then airbrush the darker background over the details, then, using very fine sandpaper, lightly sand over the details. This brings them out into sharp contrast against the background. A similar method uses dull knife edges to scrape away the darker paint until the details pop out. You can also use micro brushes to hand-paint the fine detail.
I’m curious. What do you find depressing in the finish?
Bill
The sanding/scrapping idea looks like it could work, though I’m not sure the Vallejo paints I use would be up to the task - they form a rubbery layer, rather than a tough, hard one like Tamiya acrylics. I was thinking of switching completely to Tamiya anyways, at least for basecoats (Vallejo peels under masking tape, Tamiya doesn’t).
I find depressing the unevenness of the contrasting areas, like the ballustrades - but overall, from a distance it looks fine. I just touched up the borders of the name plate a bit, looks better now. BTW, they should have moulded the name, or at least include a decal for the purpose… I had to resort to printed paper again.
Have you considered using fine tip markers? You can get them at any art or craft store. They are easier to control than paint brushes, and they make detail painting far easier. I am using one on a Le Soleil Royal I am building and they work beautifully.
Bill
I used permanent black marker on some fine raised details of the kit - however, I haven’t found fine tipped markers in more colors at local stores so far. Just some nasty ones with a huge tip… the search goes on.
Thanks for the suggestions!
Roberto,
I get mine at two local chain stores, Michaels and A.C. Moore. Both are large arts and craft stores. They sell a wide range of fine and extremely fine tips that are very useful for painting fine details on plastic ships. Let me know what colors you need.
Bill
The German drafting supply firm Staedtler makes a set of colored, very-fine-tipped markers that work well - if you’re trying to cover a dark color with another dark color. A fine Staedtler pen probably would work well for the black spaces between the yellow pilasters. But covering the black plastic with a yellow marker would, I suspect, be hopeless.
For what it’s worth, I think that transom looks mighty good. Getting all those pilasters to look identical is close to impossible. I can state with certainty that yours looks far better than any of the ones I built did.
If you feel like touching it up some more that’s certainly commendable. But if you can’t make it any better than it is now, these 64-year-old but pretty critical eyes won’t mind.
One thing I would take the liberty to suggest: consider doing something about those oversized round bosses that the stern lanterns fit into. They’re conspicuously out of scale. Once the lanterns are in place, the bosses will be less noticeable, though. Again, if you can figure out how to get along without them the model will be improved - but it’s going to look mighty nice in any case.