RKurczewski

Thanks Nigel. Yes, I agree and reasons for that approach are few. First- as mentioned in "The Santisima Trinidad- a gigant of the seas": "On the stern, she had three rails of windows: the two upper ones had balconies. The upper window rails belonged to the admiral’s accommodations, the middle one to the commander’s and the lower one had balustrades. Although in some iconography of the ship, the stern appears to be very sober and it is very possible that on the laterals she carried sculptures of Greek mythological characters and other ornaments. She possibly had the stern designs patterned after Mullan’s model, because the sobriety in the construction of Spanish ships came after the construction of the Santísima Trinidad and it was stressed towards the end of the 18th century. Although it looks like during the era of the ship’s construction in Havana, there was no well-known master wood carver or sculptor; it is known that the ships made at this shipyard were at the same level of the best quality when it comes to their stern’s decorations. In fact, the Havana ships had better carved sterns than the ones built in the Peninsula, possibly due to the existence of disciples of Peppers, a wood carver brought from England by Jorge Juan." Second: testimonies of British officer, William Lovell , as well as midshipman Badcock of HMS Neptune, both mention splendid decoration of Santissima, which would not have been worth mentioning in case of much sober and plain version, shown on popular reconstructions. Following is a relation from HMS Britannia: " We then encountered the Santisima Trinidad, 240 (sic) guns on four decks (the largest ship known). We passed under the stern of this magnificent Ship, and gave her a broadside which shattered the rich display of sculpture, figures, ornaments and inscriptions with which she was adorned. I never saw so beautiful a ship. Luffing up alongside her four-decked side, of a rich lake colour, she had an imposing effect." Third: ship has been re-constructed few times (at least three major re-fits) during its history BUT we do not have any info that her stern has been damaged OR re-built at all. Fourth: there are two paintings that can be considered SOMEHOW viable iconographic material for Santissima reconstruction, namely "The Battle of Trafalgar" by William Clarkson Stanfield and "Surrender of the Santissima Trinidad to Neptune, the battle of Trafalgar" by lieutenant Robert Strickland Thomas. Both painted by people who have actually taken part in events, gathered info from other wittneses and- equally important- were sailors. Now- those can be challenged of course as painted later, but those are (IMO) closest iconocraphic materials we have, apart from prototype model of course. All other paintings/ drawings are either much later or/and done by people that- with all probability- have not even seen Santissima with their own eyes. I was not able to get a proper copy of second one (my reproduction is somehow blurry) from NMM, but when it comes to first- please, take a look and judge by yourself, which approach does it support: Considering all above AND the fact that "plain" re- construction is not really based on any iconographic material from era, there is really no reason to follow it. Now- having said all that, I'd LOVE to hear arguments against my reconstruction (after all- it is not about ego but about getting as close as possible to truth). The other thing I'd love to see would be sonar data from wreck place found in 2009... sadly it is unlikely to happen Nigel- I am not sure how much of use it will be, but you can get my parts printed at shapeways and add them to your model IF you would consider them good enough. I am not earning on it a dime- it is just pure print cost you would have to pay.

You are too kind sir, I will do my best to avoid disappointing you with final result.

Some furnishing done. Upper gallery rail is still incorrect, as are corners of deck and rail on that deck (they should be rounded, not sharp).

I am using freeware Blender (www.blender.org), which is a very good software for 3d printing. Actually in case of Santissima main problem lies not in program itself, but in scarcity of information and quite troublesome geometry. EDIT: To avoid double post: base structure in few views. That's what I consider foundation of further work. Now- IMHO at that stage it still shows some similarities with Ardent class, which later will be much less visible (because of all sculptures and decoration). Personal tirade (if you please): by using that approach (building "from ground") I hope to avoid two major problems I observe in many stern decoration reconstructions, namely: - details getting so thick, that instead of creating appearance of "lightness", they make entire thing look thick and cumbersome and - lack of understanding of inner structure If you guys can lend me your knowledge and pick on my failures- I will be oblieged, it will help me to prepare better cast (and at this point in time any corrections are quite easy to introduce).

All the time and still working .

Finally done with small collumns. Of course they still gotta be tweaked a bit, but all angles are correct (of course each and every one of them is angled differently, and each in 3 different axes). Time to go up one level up and work on balcony.

I realize it is boring and goes kinda slowly but I hope to have - again- angles right and "by the book". Columns are- obviously- not vertical and of course having them angled in one direction would be just too simple... To make things more interesting I gotta keep in mind 3d printing requirements (otherwise all the work would've been "just for show" and of no use to scratchbuilder)

I do not want angles to get all distorted (which is VERY easy in this case), so that's how I deal with finding proper angle for pilasters and window frames of lowest row.

Thank you for all kind words, gents. When it comes to 3d printing- in my opinion it is a bit of "cheating" but... at the same time it is easiest way to create low run "upgrade kits" for models that would otherwise be very hard to complete. Back to Santissima: my goal is that stern and let me explain why. All the plans and all the model kits on market show "simplified" (to not say "butchered") version of ship stern, borrowing heavily on british Agamemnon class (which is- to degree- justified). Of course we can make a "bare" stern, with close to no decoration, saying that since we do not have enough data, let us go simplest possible way. That's of course an option, but why would all the sudden all of us take that particular route and this one only ? Now- to my very best knowledge there is no single resource from era, nothing that would justify that approach. Nothing suggests removal of stern figures. We know above model, we have few written sources from Trafalgar (all of them mention magnitude of sculpted, white figures). We know that figurehead was severely damaged at Sao Vincente and most likely replaced later on (that's different, also quite fascinating story). So- my choice is copying stern from Museo Naval. 3d model you can see (and manipulate) from the very first link in first post is a base of course, I will be upgrading it as work goes along. Central part of stern decoration, portrait of Carlos II, ready for printing.

I am a professional 3d modeler, but I am printing at Shapeways (to afford good quality print results capable printer I would have more then my yearly salary... if not more). Do not let yourself be tricked by nice package offers (like DIY printers). I haven't yet seen one that can do a decent (no deep print marks) models. Waste of money. French naval officer miniature, 1/48 scale.

That is true, but I prefer to be true to original and paint elements of ship (as apart from the deck(s) very few of them remained "wood", without any coat of paint) so it will be all red anyway. Certainly I am gonna fake "planking" on it. With all honesty- I have choosen that particular approach mostly because of ammount of sculptures Santissima had (according to sources). I can sculpt in 3d but for my life I would not be anyway nearly as good working with wood so...

I am working on Santissima model (deAgostini) and since stern gallery is (sorry) attrocious, I have started working on 3d model, with 3d printing being a final option. You can see base shape here: http://skfb.ly/5l4j3h210b Now- of course other parts of the ship can be upgraded too, here is how I did it for them: A photo of "demo" model Mullan presented for approval we all probably know (Museo Naval) a quick, working draft of main parts: a 3d model (as seen in program) and a final part, ready to be mounted on the model: Thickness of those small column...ettes is at places 0.2 mm and they are still rather well sculpted and identical. There are (as you can see) traces of machine printing, but I am hoping those will actually help to make entire thing look more wood-like.