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Your work is very impressive Vic', and what a quick build !! I should learn from you ! 😄

Very interesting way to deal with the brackets ! I will study on this.

I see what you mean. I have the same history than you with this ship since the first time I saw the Heller kit when I was a kid, and I'm attracted to it ever since. And curiously I was born on the 23 may, when vice-admiral Tourville died... on 23 may. Just a coincidence of course, but I like this wink of the fate.

CRI removed his message (one of the things he's known for). So, to make it clear for everyone, he wrote "this is my last message about this topic", and I replied: Thanks ! 👍🏻

Hello Bill, of course I can have this discussion with you, I just don't want to have it again with someone with who we already debated multiple times with no mutual understanding. First, yes even at sea side, bronze guns become green. Let's see some pictures of the gun of the Croisic, (from the Soleil Royal). Some old ones show a strong vert-de-gris patina. Recently it has been cleaned and polished and covered with a sort of protective sealer and even though, you can see the green color begins to show. (personnal pictures). All the pictures of bronze guns outside that undergo the weather show more or less / dark or light green color. I just picked the ones I preferred for a reference, not too strong because they had not passed 300 years under the sea, but not bright new. It's a personnal choice. My personnal choice is also motivated by the fact that the guns with no patina were not homogeneous from one to another (some very dark, others rather bright), and very tawdry. I prefer the look of the green patina, I find it marry well with the color of the wood, and especially, it makes me give them a personnal touch, a personnal work to make them really mine. (I didn't cast them, so I felt I had to do something personnal with them) From a historic point of view, at this time it was a prestigious mark for a ship to have bronze guns, when lesser ships had iron guns. The iron guns had no decoration and indeed were painted black to protect them from corrosion. Contrary, bronze guns were not painted and were not rub because the green color was something wanted. The only reason to rub a deck is to make it stable and non slippering. Concerning the vert-de-gris on bronze, it has a protective effect (non corrosion) and was not removed. In a book "Tourville en son temps", by Jean de La Varende you can read: "douze hommes par tube de bronze aux affuts rouges, des pieces admirables, toutes de bronze vert avec les anses en forme de dauphin, les armoiries et la devise ULTIMA RATIO REGUM." And also: "il n'était pas dans les usages de les fourbir pour faire disparaître l'oxydation". Hope it helps !

We had this discussion a thousand times, I already explained why I think a vert-de-gris patina is indicated for me, as a personal choice, but also for a model in general. i don’t want to have this conversation again. 🙂

Hello ! Hello Vic, the guns are juste laid on the sill of the gunports, in place just for the picture, I have since removed them Concerning the guns, I thought it might interest some of you to know how I painted them. I was inspired by the guns in front of the Strasbourg mess, as well as those that can be seen in museums. I found their patina was very elegant, not too marked, and highlighting the decorations. The difficulty is mainly related to the scale; at 1/72 the painting, even well diluted, does not behave as at 1/48 or larger scales, especially on reliefs as small as the ones on the bronze guns. So I included a picture of the guns as received, already passed through the burnisher by Alexey. Pretty but a little flashy and not homogeneous from one to the other, going from very dark to quite light. After going through the burnisher to have a very dark working base, I apply a coat of green (house mix) with an airbrush to give the dark bronze color. The airbrush makes it possible to have a very fine layer of paint which does not thicken the reliefs of the decorations. We get a very matte result. I then apply a thin coat of protective oil for metals which will protect the base during subsequent operations. The verdigris patina is then done with Citadel's "nihilakh oxide" paint. It has the consistency of a wash, and after passing it sparingly I wipe it away, leaving it only in the hollows. The final step is to rub the barrels with the shine brush of a Dremel, which will smooth the paint a little and restore the metallic aspect to the tube. It's quite difficult to take a picture of this. I tried with different lights. the last picture is "burnt" but the color of green is the closest to what we see in real life. That's all !

Got it, I was sure it had something to do with the photographs. The matte sealer is a very good idea indeed.

Hello Marc, I love the way things are turning, and your work is very impressive considering how small the model is. (1/100) However, there is just one thing that bugs me a little. The color scheme is your choice and there is no way I want to discuss it but I find they are maybe a little too bright, or, I mean, saturated... You used the "real" 1/1 colors to paint your model, but when you look at an object from a distance, the colors are faded, due to the density of the air. So, when you look at a model, the colors should be faded. Usually it doesn't make a big difference because thre are only a few colors, and the models are often 1/48. But with so many colors and a small scale, there may be an interest to desaturate a little. It's hard to tell because certainly the colors of the pictures on our screens are not what you see with your own eyes.

Your interpretation is brilliant... !

The painting of the guns is finally finished. On the computer screen they appear very blue, they are a little greener in reality. Taking advantage of having all the guns painted, I did a little simulation... 110 guns is a lot of guns ! Of course they are balanced on the sill of the portholes so they are more prominent than they should be. (and the three on the forecastle are missing) I can now continue the construction of the hull.

You're right, the first SR was pierced to carry 110 guns, but as Marc stated, the number of guns did vary during his career.

It depends on what you call a wrong guess. Is a choice concerning a ship a wrong guess because it never existed on this particular ship, or is a wrong guess a choice that never existed that way on any comparable ship at this time ? Concerning the St Philippe, M. Lemineur says that he had no information concerning the decoration of the railing sheer, so he had to compose one being inspired by what was in use at this time. I would not call it a wrong guess, you just have to be aware of this particular point and you can enjoy a credible model of what the SP should looked like. The 74 gunship of Jean Boudriot is also an invention, I don't remember all the details but I believe he took inspiration of a particular model in a museum that was not representative of all the 74 gunships of the time. (Anyway, he didn't give his 74 a name, so it remains generic). Concerning l'Ambitieux, he made some very weird choices with the decoration. The fact is you will always have more trustable sources with a ship from the 18th century than with a ship of the 17th. And there are certainly a huge amount of wrong guesses with the Soleil Royal.

That's exactly my point ! 👍

Hello Bill ! It's a bit complicated, but yes, the Tanneron model is false. Don't get me wrong, my own model will be false too, but it's not so bad. Concerning the Tanneron it's complicated because we don't know his documentation. We are not sure his model is the Foudroyant that became SR n°2, it's an assumption by M. Lemineur (taken up by Michel Saunier) based on a few good arguments. First, at the time of the firts SR, the biggest width of the stern was at the second deck (just like the Berain drawing of the stern) when after 1673 the biggest width was under the second deck, making the stern look narrow. Second, we know that the second SR was supposed to have the same decoration than the first one. So, M. Lemineur supposes that Tanneron adapted the Berain drawing to the supposed proportions of the second SR (it makes a lot of "supposing" ) Third, the Tanneron model is pierced with 14 gunports at first deck, so is supposed to be the second SR, when the first SR was pierced at 16. So, it's a good point of view to say that the Tanneron model is certainly a good representation of what SR n°2 should have been, but it's not THE SR n°2. Because, and it's only my point of view. We know that Tanneron was told to build a model of the first SR. So he made the galleries with open balconies when the second SR should have had closed side galleries. He used as a reference the work of admiral E. Paris "Souvenirs de marine conservés", which are false in many ways. (he confused the Royal Louis with the Louis XV) As an example the last two gunports of the first deck that are lower than the others. The last gunport of the first deck pierced in the low side gallery is also suspect. The side galleries are a big problem. It does exist two different drawings of them, and none proved to be exact. The first, that I chose, has a lot of problems: a very strange architecture of the first stern balcony and a too long "voute d'arcasse". The decoration is not quite the same than the Berain drawing of the stern. But, well, in my opinion it does exist, so we have to deal with it, and it is a drawing from the 17th century, stated as "anonymous, copy from Berain". Who stated this as a copy from Berain ? We don't know. Was this drawing a version of the first decoration by Lebrun before Berain remade it ? Is this the Berain version despite all the arguments ? The question will remain. It is also hard to tell if this is open balcony or closed galleries. I readily admit that my only arguments to use it are "it does exist so I had to deal with it" which is quite weak. The second, that Michel Saunier chose, is a more recent drawing (anonymous also, to make things more complicated...) on a tracing paper. It says "Ludovic" at one point instead of Louis, so M. Lemineur suppose it has a german origin. The decoration is more connected to the Berain drawing of the stern, but maybe it has been made after, to connect better. Some say it is a working version of the Tanneron model. We will never know. The good points here are that the decoration connects better with the Berain drawing of the stern and the architecture of the first deck connection with the stern is better. Tanneron made a third version of the galleries.... Did he know the existence of the previous drawings ? If yes, why didn't he used them ? Didn't he trust them ? Or is the second drawing a preparatory for his model ? (I personnaly don't think so) Or is his work with the balcony pure invention ? Or did he had some other documents that didn't made their way to our days ? So, as you see, all you can make with le Soleil Royal is a representation of what she may have looked like, and not what she was. All the interpretations will be very hypothetical, and neither can be stated as more or less false than the other. That is why, in my conversation with M. Lemineur, he firstly told me that is was a bad idea to make a SR model. Then he told me that, if all the other points were good and respectful of the ways of doing things at the time, it could be a good model of what the SR may have been. The documentation on the SR is a mess and too poor to pretend to recreate what really this ship was. But it's what we do, suppositions and patchwork of documentation and references. Even his monograph of the St Philippe is a patchwork of what should have been and not the reality. The best monographs from Jean Boudriot and Gérard Delacroix are patchwork of different sources. The difference is that they used first hand historical sources to make their monographs when for the SR the sources are not even sure.

Hello Vic ! Yes the Artesania Latina model has a few problems: the space between the gunports, the sheer rail, the deck equipments, the side galleries are underscaled, etc... But the metal parts are very good and the recreation of the stern is exciting. I'm sure with a good work of "reverse engeneering" as said Marc, it can be a great model. Anyway I'm always pleased when someone shows interest in this ship and I look forward to see the first builds from this kit.

I confirm that I had very good contact with the Artesania Latina crew and they explained me how they used my drawing without knowing the source. They kindly offered me some tools as a compensation and I would like to publicly thank them for their reaction. I hope to see soon some nice work on their kit on this forum !

Thanks, I will try to keep the work continuous now !

You may be right, your arguments are ok. Concerning the ornaments, I don't remember where I read that the ships with royal names (such as Soleil royal, Royal Louis, Monarque, Reine, etc...) always benefited from the use of gold, when the ones with quality names (qualities that the king gave to himself of course ! such as Ambitieux, Téméraire, Agréable, etc...) benefited only from Naples yellow. I will try to find back this source. The faded red color is precisely "ventre de biche", and is mentionned to be used only on the stern.

It's an outstanding work you make, Marc. I love the way you proceed with the balcony architecture. Why did you paint it that way, personnal preference ? Historic reference just say "ventre de biche", blue and gold. Congratulations !!

Hello, thank you for your comments ! I'm currently working on the guns so the next update will be in a few weeks I think. I'm not selling/giving my plans yet, I may give them when I have corrected numerous little errors here and there. It has been corrected on the model, and re-drawn partialy but all the corrections on all the plans hasn't been made so currently it's a mess Nonetheless, I just found out that Artesania latina made a Soleil Royal kit, and, in their Youtube add video, they took one of my drawings without asking me if I was ok... Sometimes, people just don't ask...!

Thank you Marc for posting the pics, his work will be remembered !

Thank you very much for your messages ! Julia is growing up and will turn 1 year in a few days, it's been a very busy year between the family and the Covid but I could resume the work on the model a few days ago and I ended the third deck panels. I won't give up ! Thank you for your support, I really appreciate it !

Thank you very much Marc ! My wife makes miniatures quicker (and better) than me ! My daughter's name is Julia are you Leo too ?

Oh god that's beautiful !! No doubt your work will be an inspiration when I do the quarter galleries... I really admire what you did, congrats !!