Ab Hoving

Well, thank you all for your warm words. I never expected this. I hope I won't disappoint you. Druxey: Yes I know the Wasa. If you don't visit her you miss the 8th wonder of the world. Kurtvd19: Lets not overdo it. It's just a model 🙂 Hans Peters: Glad you liked the book. For the time being I have no plans for new publications, but you never can tell... How to make a paper model?

Hi, My name is Ab Hoving and I live in Holland. Model shipbuilding has been my hobby all of my life and in 1989 I left my job as an art teacher in Groningen, up north, behind to become head of the restoration department Navy models of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. The museum holds a beautiful collection of ship models and parts, collected by the Navy and the Admiralties, dating back to 1640. I retired in 2012, much to my regret. It was a wonderful time, working on the most exquisite models man has made in the past. If in many cases during my professional life I built ship models, my only aim was to investigate building methods, constructions or for instance the usefulness of 17th and 18th century building contracts. The model was never the end product, it was all about the knowledge. Modelbuilding was a method of research for me in those days. Nowadays I build ship models purely for fun. I am not a very good model builder. I always am impressed to see what other people are capable of, with no other purpose than the fun of building. I am sloppy and sometimes too hasty, but I always aim for a realistic look nowadays. Later on I will show you what I mean. To make it easier for myself I use paper as the basic material now. Paper is wonderful versatile and easy to shape material and it takes very little tools to work with. Although I used to make many paper kits of planes and vehicles in my spare time, I never used paper for ship models. It was the papermodelers.com site where I was inspired to build paper ships. The papermodelerssite is a wonderful medium for model builders, but not entirely dedicated to ship modeling. Planes, vehicles, space ships and figurines all show up there. I recommend it to you all to take a look. But probably this forum, specialized in ships and boats, is a better platform to show my efforts and to learn from you all. In the nearby future I will try to post some recent work. Hope you will like it. Best, Ab