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Hubac's Historian

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  1. Hubac's Historian
    Thank you, Gentlemen, for the kind words and the likes. I hope I will not alienate too many of you with my next foray into the unconventional. I have always liked the painting of the backboards on the Dutch ships. A few stellar examples of Herbert Thomesan’s work: I pulled these images from my Pinterest board Navies of Other Euro Nations. Herbert is a master of color, texture and shade. I take much inspiration from his use of vivid, complementary colors, and naturalistic painting of ornaments and the backboard paintings that illuminate the ship’s namesake. I have started painting my backboard. I want Apollo and his four horses to appear as though they are coasting just on the periphery of our atmospheric realm. Key to this effect is a softly diffuse transition from our earthly cerulean sky to the deep blue of the cosmos. It occurred to me, though, that the plank seams that I scribed into the backboard would make this effect near-impossible to achieve because the successively thin layers of ultra-marine would want to bleed along the seams. My solution was to putty-in transitional arcs to both sides: The horse carvings will distract the eye from these small areas where it is visible that the plank seams disappear. A base coat of cerulean blue went down first, over the entire field. I then applied successively thinner coats of ultra-marine from the top center, feathering out to the sides. This was just a patient process of application (maybe 10-12 thin coats) and adjustment with a wet brush. I got the diffuse effect I was after: Now, to tone-down the brightness - a thorough slathering in walnut ink: Once this dries, I take a wet brush and begin pulling away most of the color until I’m left with just enough patina to make it interesting: There is still adjustment to be made with the weathering, but that will be a blending process after the backboard is attached to the model. Next, I can sketch-in the Zodiac symbols. I bought a fine-line acrylic paint pen to make that easier. The clouds will be painted white and washed with grey. The ornament will get the usual two-tone gold, except for the three fleurs on the coat of arms, which will be bright gold. My plan is to also mask for fine shards of sun light, in gold and silver gilt, to be emanating from behind Apollo and his horses. This will be difficult to achieve without overdoing it, or otherwise ruining the blue backdrop. Thank you for your continued interest. More to follow..
  2. Hubac's Historian
    This is all uniformly excellent. I will follow with great interest!
  3. Hubac's Historian
    Thanks for the link, Michael!
  4. Hubac's Historian
    Wow - do you happen to have other detailed close-ups of that Sophia Amalia model, Michael?
  5. Hubac's Historian
    Before figure modifications: and after:
  6. Hubac's Historian
    Beautiful railings, Siggi. You have probably said so, somewhere earlier in the log, but I am wondering whether you plan to do a full masting and rig job.
  7. Hubac's Historian
    Thank you, David. Yes, I was delighted at the difference - much more than I was hoping for.
  8. Hubac's Historian
    I’ve been debating, for a little while, whether I can improve the scale of the Europe and Asia figures to better complement the shortened height of the stern. After the initial round of fitting and back-fill, the figures look like this: The problem I’m having with this is that these figures were designed to sit atop a taller backboard, and now the horse and camel necks seem a bit too long to me. Fortunately, I have a number of spare parts with which I can experiment. I had an idea that if you cut the animal heads at the right angle, the kerf loss and clean-up would reduce their head height just enough, and the rejoin could be easily faired. I also, while I’m at it, wanted to see whether I could decapitate the continental figures, themselves, in order to correct the angle of their gaze; they should not be staring out blandly at Soleil Royal’s wake, but instead be lovingly focused on the carving of Apollo, below: And, so, I put on my surgical gloves and got to work: The horsehead is rejoined And after filing an angle into her neck insert, so that her chin drops: The differences are subtle, but the modifications are not difficult to make. Now that I’ve seen that it can work, it doesn’t seem so risky to modify the figures that I’ve already invested a ton of work into. I’m still cobbling together the head grating, in the evening. That is all looking very promising.
  9. Hubac's Historian
    More from Duarte:
  10. Hubac's Historian
    Here is what one friend on another forum is doing with his sprit top. He scrapped all the Heller sprit-mast parts, preferring to make them all from scratch. Here is Duarte’s solution: I will copy this approach, myself.
  11. Hubac's Historian
    That’s a nice detail on the anchor stocks, to make them appear as two halves. I’ll have to remember that when the time comes.
  12. Hubac's Historian
    The oars look great, Ian - wonderfully uniform.
  13. Hubac's Historian
    Thank you, Michael. If by castings, you are referring to the large continental figures, then those are actually just the stock kit parts that I have modified. All of the blue ornaments were simply extracted from a spare stern plate.
  14. Hubac's Historian
    Time well spent: There is some sense of foreground and background. The proportion of the carving, relative to the area of the back board, closely copies the Berain drawing. I am happy. It is fascinating to me how different this is from the stock kit. Thanks for looking-in! More to follow..
  15. Hubac's Historian
    I believe the mizzen mast locates in a square hole on the lowest battery deck. It can only go so far. If the square pin locates properly, you shouldn’t be able to rotate the mast after it is seated. If you didn’t true-up that square locating hole before closing up the deck, that may be a slight problem. Either way, the mast can only go so far.
  16. Hubac's Historian
    It's only a dry-fit, so no harm, but be mindful that your fore, main and mizzen mast sections will need to rotate 180 degrees for the final glue-in.
  17. Hubac's Historian
    Sorry for the late reply. I am also basically doing the same as Henry, here. I will replace the topmast tops as well, as their scale and design is not really appropriate for the time period. As for the cheeks that support the trestletrees, what Heller has moulded on the topmast and t'gallant sections is this weird conical thing. I will make cheeks that are appropriate.
  18. Hubac's Historian
    I will comment more in-full, Bill. I just haven’t had a chance yet
  19. Hubac's Historian
    I haven’t quite decided yet, Bill. I have made my new channels so that the shrouds won’t interfere with the guns above. Because I lowered the channels on the hull, I could not simply copy the layout of the kit channels. I haven’t yet figured out whether I want the chain plates to extend down to the middle band of wales. Doing so would certainly make them easier to fashion. I recently bought some brass 24 gauge wire, so I will begin experimenting soon.
  20. Hubac's Historian
    An interesting particularity of French practice: on the Frolich model, you can see that the preventer plate spans two wales. The French fill the space between wales, flush to the surface of the wales, and for the length of the channel above.
  21. Hubac's Historian
    A Dutch ship of the mid 1660s: The Frolich model of L’Ambiteaux, 1680, which was produced from the Boudriot monograph: I think these are reliable guides for period practice on the Continent.
  22. Hubac's Historian
    From 1670, onward in France, chains are appropriate.
  23. Hubac's Historian
    Unfortunately, FWW doesn’t project much of a market for art nouveau, and so they tend to stick to the tried and true favorites; Mission, Arts and Crafts, Scandinavian Minimalism, etc. My member page is on the FWW website, though.
  24. Hubac's Historian
    Don’t be too impressed, Ian. That’s just a member page that I created. None of my stuff was selected, as such. Bill, you have certainly filled your home with some beautiful pieces!
  25. Hubac's Historian
    Thank you very much, Bill! Actually, my background is in woodworking, and I’ve designed a number of projects with varying degrees of carved work: https://www.finewoodworking.com/tag/marc-laguardia

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