After several months of work my Airfix 1/168 Sovereign of the Seas (or Royal Sovereign if you prefer - this was the ship’s later name, and is the name Airfix put on the box, although the kit represents the ship “as built”) is finally complete.
This is a LONG post, but it was a long and complex build, so hope this is OK!
(I think I posted some info on the real ship’s history on my original “work in progress” thread, but to find more info on the ship, see the Wikipedia entry. To summarise, it was a revolutionary design, almost twice as big and heavily armed as previous warships, and set the standard for “ships of the line” for the next 150 years or so. It was also one of the most ornate warships in history, being covered with gilt carvings from the deck line upwards.
The reason for the delay is that halfway through rigging the shrouds I gave up and decided to put the model to one side for a while, mostly out of frustration at the difficulty of attempting to tie and glue the lines in place. The “while” ended up being over a month. I finally resolved to finish the model last week and found some new rigging material (very fine “mercerised” cotton thread) which is much easier to work with than the synthetic polyester thread I was previously using (the main cause of my earlier difficulties). Rigging the shrouds was still a pain (mainly due to the tiny + rather fragile plastic deadeyes)
I rigged the model according to the kit instructions (which may well not be accurate). It is far from being fully rigged, but is certainly the most complex rigging job I have done so far! I used black thread for the shrouds and a dark yellowish-brown colour (more or less like old rope) for the standing rigging, with the running rigging in a slightly lighter colour.
The shrouds are rigged by hand, after drilling out the deadeyes; this certainly, looks a lot better than the kit-supplied shroud/ratline assemblies, but I didn’t add ratlines; in this relatively small scale you can probably get away with leaving them off.
Two overall views:
A note about the flags: I cut the Union flag and red ensign down to a smaller size, I know ships of this era commonly had very large flags (certainly in battle) but the flag sheet supplied by Airfix is very “papery” and unconvincing in appearance, so I wanted to make them a bit less conspicuous. I left off the royal flags (which fly at the mast tops) entirely, as these are even worse; they look like the cheap paper flags sold at the seaside to put on sandcastles (do you have these in the US?); I’m not sure these flags would have been flown on all occasions anyway.
All the flags are attached using halyards made from rigging thread.
The model is mostly painted with Revell acrylics; the deck is Earth Brown drybrushed heavily with Stone Grey (which gives a very convincing weathered deck appearance,IMHO). The gilding is represented with Revell Gold, highlighted with Citadel “Burnished Gold”. Cannons are painted with Citadel “Brazen Brass” which gives a very realistic dull bronze appearance (I also use this paint on ship propellers; it’s very close in colour to phosphor-bronze). Drybrushing with acrylic craft paint was used extensively to give a more realistic “wood” effect to the hull, spars and other parts, light weathering in the form of grey and grey-green paint was also applied to the hull below the waterline (which is painted with Revell Stone Grey to represent the tallow-based “white stuff” anti-fouling compound; a yellowish off-white colour seems about right for this)
Many models, both wood and plastic, of the Sovereign have the base colour of the upper works painted blue; however from checking references and asking other modellers on this forum, it seems that black was more likely, hence this is what I used for my model.
Close-up views, from stern to figurehead:
The model itself is only slightly modified from “out of the box” condition, though all the parts required extensive cleanup of flash and mould lines. I added structural detail to the interior of the bulwarks, knightheads to the base of the bowsprit, and a couple of barrels on the amidships deck (from the spares box; not sure which kit they were originally from).
I also closed up all the lower gunports, as like all Airfix sailing ship kits these are represented as solid squares in which are inserted gun barrel “stubs” - very unconvincing in appearance, and I didn’t really want to cut them all open and install a scratchbuilt gun deck (as I did with my Airfix Victory) - hence I just glued all the lids shut.
A view of the stern gallery:
Closeups of the spars and rigging:
Airfix’s moulded decoration on the hull and stern gallery is rather crude and simplified (although moulded fairly sharply) and doesn’t really do the real ship justice (look at contemporary paintings, or the 1/48 museum model (forget the name of the builder) to see what I mean). The figurehead (representing the Saxon king Edgar on horseback) is also incredibly crude; I know this is a 1960s-vintage kit, but Revell were producing infinitely better detail on their sailing ships 5 years earlier. Nevertheless, when painted it still looks very impressive from a foot or two away.
I wanted to add more detail to the model in the form of figures, deck fittings, etc. but gave up with this as I couldn’t find any suitably-clothed figures of the right size - those in the Lindberg 1/133 Wappen von Hamburg are the right era, but about 25-30% too large which is quite noticeable (they’re about 7’-7.5’ high in 1/168 scale).
In the case of the deck fittings, I couldn’t find any references other than “HECEPOB” models (i.e kits from the likes of Mamoli and Sergal, of dubious quality and accuracy - in fact I think it was the Sergal “Sovereign” which was the subject of a highly critical article on these kits), which are certainly not a reliable reference source (considering that many of them are based on plastic kits in the first place). The result is that the decks of the finished model are rather bare and unfinished looking, but from a distance it still looks good.
There were a few times, particularly when doing the rigging, when I thought “why am I wasting time on this when I could be building a more interesting subject?” Now it’s finished, though, it makes me want to start work on the Wasa or St. Louis! (If I ever build these two, and the Lindberg Wappen von Hamburg, they will certainly look impressive on the shelf together)
However, this will probably be my last sailing ship build in a scale as small as this for a while (not counting steam-and-sail ships). My next sailing ship will be the Aurora 1/100 clipper “Sea Witch”; this will be a restoration of an old, built and painted second-hand model. I also plan to build the Pyro steam revenue cutter USS Harriet Lane (aka “Civil War Blockade Runner”) soon.
A final note to JTilley or any other sailing ship experts on this forum - if I have made any serious errors with the rigging, or any other areas of this model, please let me know - I certainly won’t be offended and it will help me improve my work in future.
Anyway - hope you like my model, and I hope it inspires other modellers to build this old kit - it is a bit crude and simple compared to, for example, the Airfix Wasa or Prince, but still looks good once built.
