I’ve finally decided to start my first ship project. Well, technically it’s my second but that first attempt was when I was kid and I don’t think I’ve even finished the model:) Anyways…
This will be also my very first WIP thread so please bear with me. My progress will be very slow as I don’t have too much time to work on the model but I’ll try to post updates regularly.
I know I’ve picked up fairly hard subject as my first attempt, but this was the model that met my criteria:
I wanted to build new model (not one of those from golden age 1950-1970)
I wanted larger scale as I think it will be easier to work with smaller pieces
I wanted a ship that did not exist in real life. This way I don’t have a burden of being true-to-the-original
The kit shouldn’t cost a fortune
So far I’ve only glued the two hull halves together and dry fitted part of the decks.
I also tried to paint one of the deck pieces to test my plastic-to-wood skills. The first attempt didn’t went very well. I painted the piece with Ochre and covered it with dark brown oil. The result was not bad but I wasn’t happy with the color (too dark) and also the planking was totally invisible. It just looked like a large piece of wood.
So I stripped the colors off and scribed the planking to create some more depth. It’s perhaps too deep now (for the scale). Again painted with the Ochre. Then masked some of the planks and dry brushed the same color only slightly darkened. Instead of dark brown, this time I’ve used Raw Sienna and I think it looks way better. The only thing that bothers me now is that it looks too new but I gues I can work on this later on. In the end I’d like it to look like being heavily used and worn.
I’m still re-scribing the planking on decks. So boring and time consuming:). To give myself a break from this I’ve moved to building the stand.
According to the instructions, the figurines should be colored but I don’t think I’ll do that.
The wood texture is probably little over the top. I don’t like the darkened edges where the paint accumulated. On real wood the only reason for the edges to be dark is that they’re dirty from handling which seems inappropriate for a ship stand…
If you had said nothing about the darkened edges, I would not have noticed. It looks pretty dang nice to me. BTW, I chuckled about the scribing. I can relate to the tediousness of certain aspects of the hobby.
Couple friends asked about the plastic-to-wood process so I want to share it here. It’s a combination of various methods that I found online.
Step 1: Scribe the planking.
Obviously, this step is optional. I like to see the individual planks with shadows in between them.
Step 2: Apply lighter brown shade.
I used a mix of Revell Aqua color 88 Ochre and 371 Light Gray (80% of Ochre to 20% of Light Gray). I applied it straight to the bare plastic without primer. No need to go for even coverage. In fact if you can see the variation in color that’s a good thing.
Step 3: Apply darker shade of brown to individual planks
For even better color variation I mask individual planks and give them at least two different shades of brown. As you can see, the color variation in my case is subtle but you can make the contrast bit more visible if you want.
Step 4: Apply Oil paints
This step will turn the plastic to wood. I use Koh-I-Noor’s Raw Sienna (I also use Burnt Sienna for the darker shade of brown) straight from the tube. Many recommend to use acrylics for this stage but I love the fact that oils give you plenty of time. Also some recommend to first put the oil on cardboard so that it can soak the oil and then the pigments dry faster, but for me the oil guarantees that I can play with the piece for a longer time and also it flows much nicer into all the corners. Two blobs of color like you see on the picture is enough for this large piece of plastic.
The secret tool to use here is the cheapest and hardest toothbrush that you can buy. The stiffnes and size of the brush is a reason why you can see the wood grain and variation even if the plastic itself doesn’t have wooden texture.
After some time (20 minutes or so) the tootbrush will start to peel the color off a bit so even if you start with some darker shade of brown, eventually you’ll get lighter tones. You can use this to make various spots a bit brighter to give it even more variation.
Let it dry for couple of days.
Now you have two options:
When it’s dry, seal it with the semi flat gloss coat and apply filters/washes as you want
Apply oil wash into recesses without sealing. Beware that the underlying oil paint will mix with the wash so you need to be carefull but it can give you even better results.
Following this thread with keen interest. I have ordered Zvezda’s “Black Pearl” kit from Moscow. My understanding is that the Zvezda’s “Black Pearl” and “Black Swan” as well as R/G’s “1/72 Pirate Ship” are all the same kit. The only difference being the “Black Pearl’s” figurehead. I’m assuming Zvezda jumped the gun a little bit and got cross-ways with Disney over copyright issues? Disney has a reputaion for being rather anal when it comes to copyright stuff.
The build is looking really good. Your wooden decking effects are rather impressive.
I haven’t had a chance to compare the sprues but, yeah that seems to be the only change apart from the “camouflage”. Revell’s ship is natural wood whereas Black Swan is…well…black;) Also there is a wee difference in the stand as it does not contain ship name (it is visible in the instructions though) I have to say that the quality of sprues is great although it certainly needs some work.
I’ve been busy painting all the individual deck pieces in past weeks. While waiting for those oil paints to dry I also started to work on ship’s boat and other small parts.
Here’s the progress I’ve made:
The back of the boat did not have any planking on it, so I had to add some…
I did not bother to clean those ejector pin marks as they will be hidden under the boat’s equipment
I was not too excited about the door’s hinges either. The rightmost three planks would probably fall off in reality so I extended those hinges to cover whole width of the doors.
After dryfitting the decks together I’ve discovered that the lack of texture on the wall will be visible too much, so I’ve decided to add planks there as well…
Looking at what’s ahead, there’s a little structure at the bridge deck behind the wheel which I presume contained bell. There is no bell in the kit. At first I wanted to build one, but then a question came up: did pirates used the bell at all? I don’t think they worked in shifts like on regular ship. But then, they could use the bell as an alarm device or something like that…
If anone has an opinion on this, I’d love to hear it:)
Unless the ship was built by pirates…with a pirates mentality…I’de feel safe assuming the vessel was procured(Stolen) by pirates and if so…it probably had a bell to sound the hour and watch.
When pirates aquired vessels they typically cut the gunnals to make access for more cannon(If a merchant). Pirates where still seamen and came from a seamans background(Typically from a national navy…so they knew the need for time discipline and watch standing. I doubt they relinquished it to Davy Jones Locker to lighten the ship…[:D]
There were no specific ships built especially for pirates. All vessels were hijacked, or stolen from any location that the unfortunate ship happen to be at the wrong time and place. An example was Blackbeard’s famous, QUEEN ANN’S REVENGE, which was the former French slaver, LE CONCORD, destined for one of the French islands on the Caribbean after leaving West Africa. Most of her crew were sick and unable to offer much resistance to Blackbeard. Pirates often preferred one masted sloops, as these ships were fast, easy to maintain and with their shallow draft could excape persuit by larger ships over shallow waters. Early 17th century pirates based on Hispanola lived ashore. When they spotted a Spanish sail leaving Cuba, the pirates piled into large one masted skifts and surrounded the unfortunate treasure ship.
Generally the pirates of the you-know-where operated small fast sloops etc. from shore as stated. They had no interest in getting into a gun battle with an armed ship as they would have invariably lost. They needed for it to be “over before it started”.
So the idea of a large, armed ship with any sort of discipline is far fetched.
As far as this model is concerned, I haven’t built it but there have been a number of builds here that I’ve enjoyed, people like it. One detail to watch out for and avoid. Some of the versions have a pair of little beams that stick out over each gun port. In my opinion they are a holdover from the movie, added to give the port lid lifting ropes some leverage in order to do the whole " lids all pop open" scene,and don’t make much sense no matter how fantastic one wants to be.
And there’s the whole capstan around the mast thing.
The painting of pirates about to attack a Spanish treasure ship is by Howard Pyle (1853-1911). He was an American illustrator, painter and author, best know for children’s books that he wrote and illistrated.
Thanks for suggestions:) The bell it is then. The only thing to decide would be what kind of bell it would be. The chapel design suggests a hanging bell, but I don’t know how it would be secured so that it doesnt ring accidentally. I could not find any good drawings of such bell construction so far:(
@GMorrison: yeah I plan to leave the rods above gun ports on the sprues and not put them on the model. For capstan, I havent decided yet how to get rid of it in an elegant way…
How ship’s bell was hung was usually a choice of the builder. On English warships, the ships bell was usually hung in a structure as depicted in this model. To left, behind the black object is a structure with a semi-circular roof. The bell was hung inside this structure. Hope this helps.
I am with you on the bell . Most pictures I’ve seen have the bell enclosed in a little structure ( Belfry ? ) . The bell was struck with an external striker and I think some had a clapper that was drawn to the side to prevent casual ringing . T.B.
so please bear with me. My progress will be very slow as I don’t have too much time to work on the model but I’ll try to post updates regularly.
There were no specific ships built especially for pirates. All vessels were hijacked, or stolen from any location that the unfortunate ship happen to be at the wrong time and place. An example was Blackbeard’s famous, QUEEN ANN’S REVENGE, which was the former French slaver, LE CONCORD, destined for one of the French islands on the Caribbean after leaving West Africa. Most of her crew were sick and unable to offer much resistance to Blackbeard. Pirates often preferred one masted sloops, as these ships were fast, easy to maintain and with their shallow draft could excape persuit by larger ships over shallow waters. Early 17th century pirates based on Hispanola lived ashore. When they spotted a Spanish sail leaving Cuba, the pirates piled into large one masted skifts and surrounded the unfortunate treasure ship.
