king derelict

Derrick has several water themed diorama videos on YouTube including seas with bursting waves. The epoxy water is beautiful. One warning based on my experience. If you use epoxy in any depth make sure your walls or frames are solid. The stuff will deep past anything insubstantial and it's really hard to scrape off the top of a clothes dryer! Alan

There are some real experts on the forum, @mikegr, @Landlubber Mikeand @CDWcome to mind. This guy has some great ideas and skills too I think you will have fun Alan

I like your plan better than just shelving a great model. I think how you do the sea will be critical. Maybe create a base with some depth so you can cut the hull far enough back to avoid damage to elements you want to keep. It would also allow you to set the parts at the angles you want. A layer of epoxy resin would probably be good at the surface. @mikegris an e,left at seascapes add probably has great suggestions I'm looking forward to seeing it develop Good luck Alan

Great to see this coming back. Alan

Thanks Kevin It's a bit of an awakening to realise I have spent more on the sanctions than I have for all the PLA filament to print the entire ship Alan

An "L" of a day today. Printing lockers and painting and fitting ladders. The bridge looks a bit bare and they must have had lockers for ammunition, sherry, biscuits and all the other naval necessities. The bridge photos I have show it a bit busier so I'll add a few more lockers on the rear of the bridge and on the wings. Ladders were added to the bandstand and bridge. The radar lantern was painted and the masking removed. No bleed past the masks thankfully. Its just placed for the photo. I need to add the walkway railings next. I placed all the sections onto the hull to see if it still fits - and as a bit of a morale boost. Its coming together. I sent off to Cornwall Boats for another 50 stanchions. I couldn't find them in the US - Age of Sail were out of stock. Might have to do something else while I'm waiting. I'm not sure why I initially ordered so few. Probably shock over the price of ten packs of them. This model is a real black hole for supplies. Paint and glue just disappears. Thanks for looking in Alan

Many Thanks NS I'll try reducing the layer height for the 20mms. I found your files on Thingiverse and will give them a try too. Your prints look very good. I am slowly getting better but initially I thought that it would be much easier to set up and print with teh Ender. If you have read my log (which seems to mirror other peoples experience among my friends) its not necessarily that easy. Its also apparent that the Ender as delivered is a starting point and needs upgrades to get the best out of it. Reprinting the Flower at 1/72 the hull sections and connectors were still thick enough but I don't think I would have liked to go much smaller. Its been a huge learning experience and I think I've mostly enjoyed it once I got to produce reasonable prints. In some ways I wish I had spent more time learning before diving in. I should have probably gone right back to printing the hull sections all over again but by the time I realised I could do better I had invested too much time and effort. Maybe I can try the Castle corvette but I rather like the Dry Dock subs as a static model too Thanks again for the helpful input Alan

Looks very impressive. Coming on well Alan

That is spectacular. That site has some gifted artists also Alan

Working on details today. I painted some of the ladders. I realised that I had neglected to add the railing around the companway to the lower deck from the bridge. It would have been a lot easier to install before fixing the bridge in place. A bit of fiddling with the dividers and I managed to place the stanchions and bend the handrails They are now ready to be painted and then fixed in place. I added braces to the underside of the radar walkway and then masked the lantern windows which have been painted gloss black. A dilute coat of clear coat will be added before painting to seal the masks Thanks for looking in Alan

Thank you very much OC. There seems to be a lot of repeat work on this one but I suppose its a learning process Alan

Thank you Todd, I am looking forward to seeing your model build. Alan

Wow. suddenly the scene is full of action and it looks terrific. Its only going to get better as more figures get added. Careful handling from here on out ! Alan

I'm still working on the corvette but it seems like I am going round in circles a bit. I painted the red block on the funnel and unmasked it to find that the red had crept under the masking. Its my own fault I knew that the rough surface of the model means that you don't get a good seal by just burnishing the tape. It really needs sealing with something like a matte coat. I scraped it off and resprayed the white and masked up again. This time i used too much clear coat I think and that pulled away with the masking tape and needed a further touch up. I think its acceptable now so I'll leave it to harden overnight and then mask it up for the blue elements. I found that the x supports for the bridge didn't fit properly because I had added some support strips to the hull and they interfered with the support braces and left them too high under the bridge. I tried trimming them but didn't like the result so I ended up reprinting them to be 4 mm less in height and painted them up and they fitted nicely. So the wheelhouse has been permanently installed with the x supports and the bridge added and glued down. The Oerlikons are only placed for the look. They need more paint but I think will look the part. The blast screen and several lockers were added. Theer is some artistic license with the lockers positioning given that I haven't found any clear images of the area. For some reason I can't turn these last two images vertical - sorry Still quite a way to go. I think I may try to finish the forecastle and have a break to make something small I printed and built up the depth charge racks and primed them along with a number of depth charges Thanks for looking in and for the likes. Its fibnally beginning to look like I may be making (slow) progress Alan

The sea is really well done. I like it a lot Alan

The light grey surfaces look really good Alan

It looks terrific. The lantern windows came out really well in spite of looking difficult to achieve a tidy result. You have placed it in a great location and should be very happy. Alan

Short Walk is a great book some real understated exploration and adventure Alan

I think it's a very tough trick to pull off. I've seen a lot of dioramas where casualties are essentially standing figures cut off their bases and placed lying down. They don't have the slumped look you see in paintings and photos and rather spoil the appearance. I think you have it sorted out. Alan

Looks very good OC. The pile will look very convincing when it's in place. It's going to be a cracking diorama

An excellent idea. I'm looking forward to learning for my little boat Alan

I'm glad you showed the details of the colour build up. I'm very interested in learning how to develop shading in painted surfaces instead of a bland uniform cost Alan

Moving along in a few areas I printed the parts for the 20mm Oerlikon and assembled one. It isn't too bad and painted up might work out. Its a curious thing; the left shoulder rest prints fine but the right one doesn't. Its a repeatable problem. I'll fiddle with the file and see if I can improve it. Both files have been modified to increase the print height which helped make the left rest useable but the right one is still a problem. At worst a spare left rest can be modified to become a right one. The railings at the back of the charthouse were added and painted. Its the first time I have used the Mr Metal Primer and the paint really went on nicely after it. I started masking up the funnel to add the band. There is a bit of variation in the photos and paintings of the band but I am going with what looks like a "W" code flag on the sides and an "X" flag fore and aft Thanks for looking in and the likes Alan

Thank you Todd. It seems to have been an unnecessarily long road to get this far but learning to get good results from the Ender was a tiresome business and I very nearly abandoned the whole enterprise. Thats partly why I reprinted the smaller scale version; it was partly to reassure me that printing was (generally) a fairly routine and controllable activity. Some aspects are still a bit frustrating but I have learnt a lot. I'm somewhat tempted to get the files for the Astute sub as the next print project. Alan

Impressive detail in those resin figures. Its easy to forget how small those figures really are. The photo of the lane with the injured soldier and the long shadows looks very convincing. The pile of casualties is quite a challenge. I look forward to the end result. Alan