Jump to content
NRG Photographic Model Ship Competition - All eligible to enter - Reduced memberhsip fee - JULY 31 ENTRY DEADLINE ×

Hubac's Historian

NRG Member
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    3,220

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Everything posted by Hubac's Historian

  1. Hubac's Historian
    The stem and figurehead in place: This is the trailboard layout that I have arrived at: I find that it is much easier to neatly draw something on vellum because you can mark-out reliable reference lines, and the paper has tooth. You can also erase easily and forever on vellum which, in the case of something like this, is extremely helpful. My layout of the Berain design was going very well until the foremost section, in front of the big fleur. The essential problem is that Heller threw a wrench into the design with the way that the tail of the figurehead resolves. In Berain’s drawing, the tail resolves between the knees of the head, and fully forward of the trailboard lattice: Perhaps because Tanneron did not address the figurehead or the trailboard, Heller took some creative license. The Heller tail resolves mostly below the trailboard, but the upper lobe of the tail intrudes into the trailboard space in a very inconvenient way. This small semi-circular intrusion is a design disrupter! Rather than attempt to continue the lattice in an unsatisfactorily asymmetrical way, I chose to take a little creative license, myself. To my mind, leaving the space open and unsupported would not make any structural sense. I considered adding one larger shell to this forward space, but there was no way to do that without it looking grafted on - an afterthought. Ultimately, I chose a year marker for the rebuild - not because it is plausible historic convention, but because it adds something of historic relevance and context to this particular depiction of Soleil Royal. I employed a similar rationale for the inclusion of the motto banner on the lower transom. The statement, however imperfectly, that I am trying to make with this model is that these Berain/Vary portraits represent her refit appearance in 1689. And so, this will be my time-stamp signature in the trailboard. Also, numbers have a wonderful malleability for filling odd spaces.
  2. Hubac's Historian
    Gaetan, as always your work is impeccable, and your ship is rounding into form beautifully. Thank you for posting that listing of NRJ article subjects. I will have to obtain a set of the CDs. If I may ask about the chatter groove on the aft face of the rudder - in what period of French naval architecture did this groove first appear?
  3. Hubac's Historian
    Thank you, Louie! Just wait until you see the actual stem/figurehead; the paint work in that really is the best of my ability. In particular, there is a greater depth of grey-shade on the white portion of the horse. This looks so good, IMO, that I have decided that the four continental figures will be done in this fashion; grey-shaded white flesh with gilded vestments. The Four Seasons figures will have natural flesh tones with gold leaf vestments, and possibly silver leaf washed with translucent green for the foliate head-dresses. I’ll have to see what that looks like. The Pixies will have natural fleshtones, gilded hair and bellflowers, and the same mottled green/grey tail treatment that I gave the figurehead. If the silver base/green wash effect looks good, I can use it for some of the smaller ornaments of the frieze. We shall see. I glued-in the stem before I left, and now need to get this trailboard patterned and carved, so that I can continue constructing the head. I did a little more rough sketching, last night. I’m close! As always your interest and support are greatly appreciated!
  4. Hubac's Historian
    Exquisite workmanship!
  5. Hubac's Historian
    I’m enjoying a very pleasant and relaxing family vacation in Dennis Port, Cape Cod. I was close to finishing up the amortisment crowns, so I brought them with me. I had to simplify the design a little bit; the fleur-de-lis are really tiny, so while the design calls for three, I found I could only really make a good relief for the central one. I’m also attempting to layout the trailboard, but it is difficult to reliably draw something so complicated onto styrene - the pencil skates across the surface. Even if I don’t come up with a polished design, I can at least work out the rough parameters, while I am away. Once I get home, I can layout the final onto vellum, photocopy it and then transfer the design to the part. The layout hinges upon the aft-most fleur, which is centered between the gammoning. You can appreciate, now, how the scale of the fleurs increases, as you move forward - this, owing to the tapered space between the knees of the head. Although, I would prefer to have three fleurs, I think that I will be hard-pressed to make that look good, in such a small space. I feel that a better impression of the original design, in this case, supersedes absolute fidelity. I can eventually align one headrail supporting timber with the aft fleur, but I won’t upset myself if the forward fleur does not neatly align with a headrail supporting timber. The Berain/Vary portraits show the headrail supports in-line with the shells, but that arrangement would mean that the fleurs are mostly hiding behind the gammoning. As a symbolic decorative element, it seems to me that the fleurs should be the most visible, and so, I have chosen to reverse that arrangement. As is sometimes the case with this modification project - the mere inclusion of missing details (trailboard, headrail supports) is an upgrade, even if they can’t be realistically rendered as a unified whole, where everything is in its proper place.
  6. Hubac's Historian
    Given these reasonable arguments for keeping the spritsail holes, and given that Lemineur shows them in his monograph for the St. Philippe, I would be inclined to represent them for this time in 1689. There’s a good chance, though, that my diorama won’t have the spritsails unfurled, so it is a moot point for this model.
  7. Hubac's Historian
    I did not know this. So, Druxey, is it incorrect to show this sail detail in the latter half of the 17th Century? The bowsprits of French ships, at this time, are pretty steeply raked.
  8. Hubac's Historian
    That is more than okay, John. I am gratified that you are getting useful insight from it all, and I really appreciate the kind words. I am happy to help others, as so many, here, have been extremely helpful to me. In large part, that is what this hobby is all about. You should check out EJ_L’s fine Soleil Royal build. I believe it is also the Sergal kit. EJ chose to make all of the ornaments from scratch and he made a fabulous first effort of it.
  9. Hubac's Historian
    You’re in plenty good shape, Henry. I have some main deck line leads to figure out (if I remember correctly, you already addressed this topic in your build) for the main tacks and sheets, but it will be a longtime before I advance beyond that point. It will be cool to make use of the chesstrees (sp?) that I added to the upper bulwarks. CF, I totally agree with you about restrained use of gold - that is, indeed, my strategy.
  10. Hubac's Historian
    What are you worried about Piet? You’re still the front-runner! I’ll give it til’ Sunday, 12 midnight, EST. If no one else responds, then you’re the Man!
  11. Hubac's Historian
    Ha! - Rigging is my weak spot. I may ask you to substantiate that. Then again Piet, or should I say Tourville?, you may win by default, if no one else ventures a guess. I will say that the rig looks mostly correct to my, as yet, untrained eyes. The glaring exception is the triple gammoning. This will be the first model that I am trying to rig in a fully authentic way, and will be referencing Popeye2Sea’s log quite a bit for that. One can see, though, just how dramatically improved the model is by cutting her down to the waterline. This builder did not even opt to raise the waterline, which helps even more with the impression of stability.
  12. Hubac's Historian
    So, I was just surfing around, as I often do, and I found this diorama gem of the Heller kit: I thought this might be a fun opportunity to play “HOW MANY MODIFICATIONS?!” Whomever can accurately identify the most kit alterations/additions (even if technically wrong), will have their likeness modeled as Tourville, on my model - to the best of my ability, in 1:100. GAME ON!! Side note: personally speaking - this is a fabulous model, and only a very few things jumped out at me as “huh?” I love so many things about this model - particularly the sails! How often does a modeler successfully represent a furled sail? 2nd side note: deviations from standard paint orthodoxy count!
  13. Hubac's Historian
    Alright, so this settles it for me. Super simple, and this two-color application produces a nice transitional effect. I applied the grey in a dabbing manner for a mottled appearance: Once this enamel wash was dry, I applied a thinned-down coat of the ver-de-gris, blow-dried the surface, and then applied a few successively heavier coats, drying in between. The body gradually becomes a deeper green, towards the tail. As long as I could still see the grey mottling beneath, then the effect would work: I finished painting the rest of the figure, and now this looks like the thing I was after: EJ, I can’t thank you enough for steering me in the right direction. I’m going to prime the actual figurehead and I’ll get busy painting it. I had thought I could paint after installation, but it is exponentially easier to paint before, and touch up later. I’ll have to touch up, anyway, when I re-attach the knee extensions.
  14. Hubac's Historian
    That is an interesting detail. When you consider it, of course it makes sense for there to be a more substantial mass off timber to absorb the recoil. Even at this late stage, this modification would be possible. I am not certain about how that would affect the height of the barrels through the ports. Fortunately, I am pretty certain that I made one or two extra carriages that I can experiment on. Thank you for bringing that to my attention.
  15. Hubac's Historian
    Yes, Mr. Delecroix - those are strips of masking tape for later, when I mount the gun carriages. I have affixed styrene blocking to the undersides of the gun carriages, which will later be blacked out with flat paint: I thought I still had a pic of the blocking, but in any case, the glue block runs down the center of the carriage, between the axles. It was a calculated gamble, on my part, that the blackout paint will sufficiently hide the blocks. Even though structural integrity of the glue joint is not important, here, I prefer to make a more solid connection.
  16. Hubac's Historian
    Henry, I was probably using the wrong term, “block,” but this is what I had in mind for the tack fairleads: You can see the styrene shim, at the base, which was necessary in order to get a close scribe to the stem and plinth base. I added the through-bolting of the cutwater, which are actually two pieces - a diamond shaped washer and a tiny domed projection of styrene rod, on top: I have a tight scribe of the trailboard blank to the cutwater and stem. I won’t be able to scribe it to the upper head knee until after the cutwater is fixed in place: Once I have an exact size for the blank, I’ll re-draw the trailboard filigree. Ideally, the fleur-de-lis should align with the head timber supports. Realistically, though, this may need to be an area of compromise. I would rather have a good looking trailboard layout, than one that seems cramped to fit within and around the parameters of the gammoning. I have not decided yet, Dan, whether I will fill and move the gammoning holes. I was at my buddy’s house this weekend, and so I took a few head shots of my first Soleil Royal, as a reminder of the stock spacing of the whole assembly: Ideally, one of the fleurs should be centered between the gammoning. Because my headrails are now a good 1/8” short of where they need to land behind the figurehead, I do not think that I will be able to use them. I will try to heat-stretch them, because I have an extra set, but I am not optimistic about that outcome. It’s just a super complicated area. Once I can work out a trailboard layout that accommodates the current arrangement of the gammoning, I can begin patterning new headrails in cardboard, with headrail timbers that are interspersed around the gammoning. If no good layouts are possible with the gammoning where it is, then I will have to move the gammoning. EJ, I’ve been thinking about your comments on color, and I am inclined to agree. Then, it dawned on me that the color gouache Vary portrait has what I think can be taken as a literal guide for this sort of period stylized/naturalistic coloring. All of the cues are in the border of the portrait: There is also this coloration of the Berain drawing of L’Agreable’s stern, which I think is a useful guide to colors: So, what I will do on the starboard half of my spare figurehead is to darken the grey wash that I first applied to the horse, but I will do it in a graduated scale that gets darker as you approach the tail. Then I will apply the same translucent green wash that I use to simulate ver-de-gris on the guns. This, too, will be applied from light to dark. I will basecoat the Pixie’s face, arms and legs with random tan. A very light walnut ink wash will pick out some of the facial detail, while modulating the skin tone. Finally, I have a translucent red wash that, if applied very lightly, should round out the skin tone. I’ll finish by picking out the same details in gold. I have cleaned to the outline of the amortisement crowns, and they are now ready to carve: And so, we’ll see what all of that looks like. Thank you for your likes, your comments and for looking in.
  17. Hubac's Historian
    This isn’t my best paint work, and I haven’t completed the starboard side gold work, but I am looking for some feedback on this approach to the figurehead. Does this seem 17th C. French to you guys, or something else?
  18. Hubac's Historian
    Just really beautiful, clean work, Mike!
  19. Hubac's Historian
    Yes, because these head timbers correspond with the headrail supports. Here are a few pictures of my favorite model of L’Ambiteaux. The bow shot illustrates all of these design considerations quite nicely:
  20. Hubac's Historian
    Dan, you are definitely correct that the positioning of the headrails has the most influence concerning the placement of the gammoning. I will have to make a decision sooner, rather than later as to whether I will make the headrails from scratch. Yet another issue of the Heller kit is that there is very little clearance for the headrail supports that the kit (and Tanneron’s model, for that matter) has omitted. Making the headrails from scratch might give me a few extra millimeters clearance, while also solving the problem of the forward headrail scroll rising above the bowsprit mast, which it should not.
  21. Hubac's Historian
    With the ears of the knees temporarily removed, I can now get a better idea of the relationship between the upper stem knee and the cutwater. The upper stem knee mates nicely with the angle of the kit’s stock sprit mast, and the cutwater requires some scribing to fit up nicely to the stem: If I place an ear back into position, I can see that it won’t take much scribing and filling to blend the whole assembly back together seamlessly: However, before I can make any final adjustments to fit, I really need to see what the trailboard space looks like along it’s entire length. To see that, requires fitting and attaching the figurehead. For a stock assembly of this kit, one always ends up with a tapered opening where the trailboard should be. I can scribe the cutwater so that this opening is parallel, but doing so also has an impact on the kit’s stock headrails, which, like the figurehead, are really nice. I am hoping to be able to use them in the build despite the increased width of the hull, which has a shortening effect on the headrails. More on that later. Before attaching the figurehead to the cutwater, I wanted to make some modifications to the cutwater. First, I wanted to file-in a slight, and graduated taper to its leading edge, as marked out here: You can see that the plastic is plenty thick enough to reduce it by half it’s thickness, at the base of the cutwater. In the end, the difference is subtle, but noticeable if you are looking for it. The other big problem with Heller’s representation of this massive and fundamental structure is that the timbering, with its butt joints and sandwich laminations bears zero resemblance to the interlocking structure of a ship’s cutwater: Above, the laminations cross the gammoning holes in ways that no shipwright would ever allow. On better representations of this cutwater structure, the gammoning holes are often angled to follow the run of the timbering. For inspiration, I looked to the St. Philippe monograph: This is good because the timbering is not overly complicated, and it doesn’t interfere with the gammoning; never-mind, for a moment, that the SP gammoning is drawn below the water line - that is its own issue. The main thing that I don’t like about this SP timber layout is that the joinery is all straight lines. In reality, these timbers would have been carefully selected for natural grain that pretty closely follows the shape of the stem, thus dramatically increasing the strength of the structure. Strength is critically important when you consider the massive weight of structure that the cutwater is supporting (figurehead, headrails, et al), as well as the dynamic ocean forces playing upon it at all times. So, with that in mind, I looked to what Marc Yeu chose to do for his SR: (photo, courtesy of Marc Yeu) Note that the trailboard opening is parallel. I believe that Marc adopted Frolich’s timbering for L’Ambiteaux. To me, this is a much more natural looking structure, so I chose to adapt it to the Heller stem. I considered filling the gammoning holes and re-orienting them, but decided against it, after I had arrived at a layout with minimal, and dare I say plausible, interference: Above, after much careful fitting, the figurehead is secured, and I have filled the hole for the fore-course tack lines. Instead, I will be making a block for these that attaches to the leading edge of the stem. I will probably also represent the through-bolting of the stem, on its leading edge. It’s a simple thing to do and adds a nice touch of realism to the model. So, as I consider the coloration of the head, the figurehead offers me an opportunity to experiment with an idea I have about coloration of all the really large statuary - most especially, the four continental figures of the stern. Just about everyone who builds this model paints all of these figures solid gold. It is hard to argue with that choice, as that is how Peter Vary represents her in his coloration of the Berain design: The issue I have with this is that I find that much gold to be overwhelming, and the effect it has is to diminish the impact and beauty of the ornamental design; everything seems to get lost in a sea of gold! I have an extra figurehead to experiment with. I would like to see what the horse would look like painted white, with a light grey wash to give it some depth and shading. I would pick out the main, the reins, the riding pixies, the acanthus leaves along the horse’s belly, and the horse’s tail in gold. meanwhile, the moulding of the knees would be painted yellow ocher, instead of gold, as will be the fretwork of the trailboard; only the fleurs and bellflowers of the trailboard will be picked out in gold. If I really like this, I will apply it to all similar figures. Although things may have been different in 1670 (Hyatt’s description of the RL being EXHIBIT A), by 1688 - in the midst of a horrendously expensive re-build of SR - it only seems sensible that the ship would NOT be completely covered in gold leaf and lapis-based ultra-marine. These are stylized choices I would be making, but I think they are appropriately representative of the period. The deck gratings are painted now, and I will soon be gluing-in the main deck: To get a sense for how effective the walnut ink is, take a look at the contrast, where I haven’t yet applied it: In the first picture, above, I have modulated the effect a bit, to tone it down - super easy with a dampened brush. It’s probably still a bit over done, but I like the grubbiness of the effect. Thank you for the likes and looking in!
  22. Hubac's Historian
    Interestingly, I have read of a similar grey/green color used for the officers’ quarters of French 17th C. ships, though I would have to do some searching to find specific reference.
  23. Hubac's Historian
    While I wait for my deck to cure, I thought it would be a good time to start constructing the head. Now, I knew that I would have to adjust the knees of the head to accommodate the increased width, at the bow, but I naively believed that it would be a simple matter of scribing them to fit. Well, that’s not going to work out so neatly, after all: I think the only way around this is to cut off the knee extension pieces, scribe the loose ends to fit, and the rejoin the cutwater with a styrene filler piece that can be shaped and moulded to match. It seems iffy, but I think I can pull it off. Assuming this works out, and I can use these parts, I would like to introduce a taper to the leading surface of the cutwater. The plastic is thick enough that I can represent the taper without compromising the part. Since doing so will eliminate most of the timber structure and graining, I will go-ahead and re-engrave a more likely timber structure than what Heller has provided for. Both of the figureheads I have are somewhat warped, but one is a better fit than the other; its irregularities can be finessed and minimized. Today, I finished the Pixies. I wish that I were better at carving faces, but this was the best that I can do, for the time being: Next, I’ll make the crown ornaments that the Pixies are supporting. By the time those are done, I should be ready to pattern and carve the trailboard that fills the space between the head knees.
  24. Hubac's Historian
    Thanks, Druxey!
  25. Hubac's Historian
    No need to go to any trouble, ClipperFan. Your description of the poster sent my mind to riffin’ on those outrageous and spectacular old vans. In any case, your talents are plainly evident to me. I’m glad you are enjoying this project!

About us

Modelshipworld - Advancing Ship Modeling through Research

SSL Secured

Your security is important for us so this Website is SSL-Secured

NRG Mailing Address

Nautical Research Guild
237 South Lincoln Street
Westmont IL, 60559-1917

Model Ship World ® and the MSW logo are Registered Trademarks, and belong to the Nautical Research Guild (United States Patent and Trademark Office: No. 6,929,264 & No. 6,929,274, registered Dec. 20, 2022)

Helpful Links

About the NRG

If you enjoy building ship models that are historically accurate as well as beautiful, then The Nautical Research Guild (NRG) is just right for you.

The Guild is a non-profit educational organization whose mission is to “Advance Ship Modeling Through Research”. We provide support to our members in their efforts to raise the quality of their model ships.

The Nautical Research Guild has published our world-renowned quarterly magazine, The Nautical Research Journal, since 1955. The pages of the Journal are full of articles by accomplished ship modelers who show you how they create those exquisite details on their models, and by maritime historians who show you the correct details to build. The Journal is available in both print and digital editions. Go to the NRG web site (www.thenrg.org) to download a complimentary digital copy of the Journal. The NRG also publishes plan sets, books and compilations of back issues of the Journal and the former Ships in Scale and Model Ship Builder magazines.

Our Emblem ®

Modelshipworld - Advancing Ship Modeling through Research

Nautical Research Guild ® and the NRG logo are Registered Trademarks, and belong to the Nautical Research Guild (United States Patent and Trademark Office: No. 6,999,236 & No. 6,999,237, registered March 14, 2023)

×
×
  • Create New...