Thukydides

Another quick update. I have finished a mock up of the right hand side of the transom and though I am not entirely sure what everything in it is, I think it is a reasonable representation of what is in the painting. I am least pleased with the left side as in the marshall painting that side of the transom appears smaller and I have to "stretch" the art to make it fill the area.

As a cutter the stern drags a bit so the waterline is not parallel to the keel. You can see this if you look at the plans. You want to place it on the stand (this will put it at the right angle) and then use the plans to figure out how high to put the waterline. If you look at this post from my log you can see how the white is higher at the stern than the bow. https://modelshipworld.com/topic/29520-hm-cutter-alert-by-thukydides-vanguard-models-164/?do=findComment&comment=894531 Is it just me or does the wale on one side look higher than the other. It may just be a quirk of the picture but it looks to me like you need to lower the left hand wale a little where it meets the stem.

Another minor update. I have been working on trying to get down the painting style. All your comments and suggestions have been a huge help. In the picture you can see a number of my attempts, you may notice a common theme of them not being good enough, but I think they are slowly getting better: A - My first attempt at the transom which I have already shown. B - My second attempt, still pretty far from what is depicted in the painting. This was my first attempt at the tilting helmet. C - My latest attempt. The shield on the left I didn’t get the shape of quite right. My transom is a little different shape than in the painting so I have to adjust the items a bit. I am more pleased with the middle which though I am not sure what some of the stuff is, it looks much closer to the painting. On the right you can see me starting to block out the shapes for the right hand item. D - This was my first attempt at the freize E - My second attempt, better than the first, but still not very good. F - Another failed attempt. G - This is the first time I feel like I have sort of hit the style and flow. It still has some significant issues, but this is good enough that I am beginning to think I may be able to actually do this with enough practice versions.

Thanks everyone for all the comments and help. I have been practicing on some paper and will share some of my attempts with you once I get closer to something I am happy with. I the meantime I have finished the cannons and so decided to take some shots of Alert with all the deck fittings temporarily in place before I have to remove them all in preparation for rigging the cannons and potentially painting the freiz. Lots of work left to go, but she is starting to look like a ship. EDIT: I realized after I took the pictures that I placed the jeer backwards :). Good there is no glue involved here.

congrats, she looks great.

The gun ports are a bit fiddly and as you discovered it is easy to cut a bit too far or at the wrong angle. Remember they are perpendicular to the keele. I didn’t realize this when i was doing mine and so one or two of them don’t look quite right.

Good to see you back at it. I also had a period where I made very little progress due to a combination of lack of inspiration and no free time. The planking looks great, you are now getting to the stage where it starts to actually look like a ship 🙂.

where did you get this drill press? How accurate do you find it to be? i am always on the lookout for small tools as i don’t have the space for many of the toys that are usually recommended by people.

Looks fantastic. It has been quite interesting to see how your designs have matured over time.

Thanks so much, You are right it is a helmet and that may be a jousting lance going through it diagonally. The one on the right is the strangest one as you may be right it is an ottoman shield, but that is a big spike.

Welcome to MSW, make sure you start a build log. I have found it a great help as a first time builder, especially when I hit problems I wasn't sure how to solve.

Congrats, she looks awesome. Great work.

Here is attempt number 2. I think I am getting closer, but even with the higher resolution photo, it is hard to tell what exactly the art on the transom is depicting. Part of my problem is my transom is not exactly the same shape as the one in the painting so I can't just do an exact 1 to 1. And I have no idea what the middle is meant to be where the port is partially covering it. Maybe a few more practice versions...

I really like your workshop. Looks like a very pleasant place to work. Good luck with the build.

Log #36: Rope While I was pondering painting a package arrived in the mail. I ordered a bunch of rope from @BenD and it looks even better in person than in the pictures. The cable laid rope is particularly nice looking and I think it is really going to enhance the model. I would highly recommend the rope to anyone who is interested in adding just that little bit of extra realism to their model. I had reached out to Ben to ask if he could do some additional sizes of cable (I had been looking for some smaller diameters than he offered on his website) and he was super helpful and made me cable in the requested sizes. He also threw in a few extras for free :). See below for some examples with my finger for scale: 1.6mm cable for the anchor 0.25mm for rigging the cannons and many other tasks 1mm cable for the shrouds

This is a really helpful post. I really appreciate you taking the time to detail all this. I had seen that picture, but the one you have linked is a higher resolution than the ones I had been looking at. This one is detailed enough I may be able to use it to copy. Thanks

No I haven't gotten much, but it is a pretty specialized topic and so I wasn't expecting too much :). I was mostly looking for any contemporary examples of the painting style (with high resolution photos) people could point me towards to try and emulate (most of the models I find by googling either don't have this or they are taken too far back to see the details properly). Though if anyone who has experience painting frieze wants to chime in I am more than ready to take advice. I vaguely remember reading somewhere about doing it first on paper, the issue for me is the time to do that would have been much earlier in the process to try and avoid it looking like a piece of paper glued to the model. The idea of painting the frieze is more of a sudden thought of mine. Also I suspect it won't look as good as if you directly paint onto the model, there is a subtle different texture you get painting on paper. There is also the printing option (as Chuck did with the Winchelsea kit). My problem with this is though it looks very nice (better than just sticking on the PE that comes with the kit), I can always tell it was printed. I am still of two minds whether to attempt this. I may try a few more practice versions and if I am happy enough I will proceed. If not I can always leave things as they are. Part of this is being driven by my thoughts about what I might try after I get the alert done and I want to practice the techniques (and make as many of the mistakes as possible) on the current model.

I have been considering whether or not to paint the frieze on the Alert. To this end I have been looking at the pictures of the contemporary model of the Winchelsea that Chuck uploaded to the site (link) as well as pictures of the Marshall alert painting (link) (though it is hard to find anything high enough resolution to really copy) and practicing on pieces of paper. I think I have managed to get the colour and depth down, but am struggling to get the patterns looking right. Does anyone who has experience painting frieze have any suggestions for examples I could look at / tips for getting the look right?

Log #35: Cannons and Other Fittings Thank you everyone for stopping by and all the encouragement. I attached the deadeyes to the hull. I can’t remember which build log I saw this in, but in it they temporarily attached a piece of string to the mast at the correct height to get the right angle. Since that seemed a good method I copied it. I also received some wooden belaying pins from crafty sailor which are a bit more to scale than the PE ones in the kit. I painted them black as I felt that produced the best contrast. I also decided I would depart from the kit arrangement for the stove pipe. Using some random pieces of plastic from my bits box I was able to construct something roughly the scale depicted in Goodwin. Conveniently I found some pieces that had rivets on them (I think from a tank armour plate or something like that) and was able to use them to match up with the drawings in Goodwin. I also took some scrap pear to make a moulding around it. Once completed I painted it black and then for the stove pipe I edge highlighted with a dark metallic paint to give the illusion of metal. I also picked out the rivets with this colour. For the cannons I began by priming them black (I did this a few weeks ago in the massive painting session). I then did a heavy dry brush of vallejo german grey (a dark grey) from the top and the sides. Dry brushing is a great technique for cannons as it produces a rough finish which allows us to somewhat simulate the uneven surface of a cast iron cannon. If you are interested in the technique I would recommend looking it up on youtube (there are many videos on the subject). However I will describe the process briefly. First I take a small makeup brush (I just get them at the dollar store) and stick it in the paint filling up the brush. It is important that you do not wet the brush first. Then take an old tshirt and brush until very little comes off the brush. We then with a light quick motion brush on the cannon. You can see the effect of this below: Notice how the recesses stay black while the exposed surfaces pick up the colour. I then proceeded to do two more dry brush layers. The first with a medium grey and then a final with a light grey covering less and less of the cannon each time. You have to be very careful as you use the lighter colours and really work to get the paint off the brush. Otherwise you will end up with too much paint on the cannon. The lightest colour should mostly be picking up the sharp upper edges. This is what they looked like once they were done and below you can see one of the cannons on a carriage.

You might want to also add whatever finish you are doing before you commit to one method or another. The calling lines were much more visible for me after i added WOP than before. Personally I like the slightly more subtle look of the pencil lines.

congrats, she looks lovely.

I took #s 10 and 9 :).

I am definitely interested in these.

Looking good. You are doing great with the log. I feel you on this. I also don't really have a dedicated space I can do messy things. There are certain tasks I have to do outside because of the mess they create or in the case of airbrushing I need to wait till everyone is in bed so I can use the kitchen so they don't go running around breathing in the paint dust.

Thanks, I had considered doing what BE did and making the proper hexagonal shape, but I decided these would look good enough. Like much of this build it is a bit of a compromise between the kit instructions and my research. I am mostly just trying to push myself and build the skills for the next kit I do when I will likely pursue more of a "no compromises" approach. I still have lots of future mistakes to learn from :).