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Mark, thanks so much for these tips. Will definitely look at all of them, I really need it.

As has been rightly pointed out, since bone carving has been practiced for a long time, there must be a glue with which to glue this material. And again, as has already been said: the glue for bone must be of animal origin. This is indeed the case. And even I, a person who had never been interested in this subject before and had no experience, understood this. You don't have to be too smart to understand this nuance. Simple logic is enough. If I know that earlier this kind of work was done by captive French sailors and they took bone as a material because it was available to them. Then it is logical to conclude that the glue must be one that can be prepared under the same difficult conditions. It is inconceivable that the captive craftsmen were supplied with some complicated means, which can be made only in the conditions of a good workshop. So the answer must be somewhere near. There must be a means that is simple enough. We just have to find that means. And it has been found. With the help of a customer, I found out that there are ready-made jars on sale that are already prepared for cooking bone glue. This is what the jars I bought look like. In my case, there are two of them. Although it is possible to do with one. The first jar is the composition for the glue. These are pellets that are rabbit based. The second jar contains a very fine grind of chalk. It is needed only to give the glue a lighter shade. So that the yellowness of the glue is not so noticeable. This type of adhesive simply cannot be made as a finished liquid. Since it is purely animal particles in diluted form such a solution has a shelf life and will soon go stale. Therefore, only the amount required for the prepared volume of bone should be diluted. Anything that will not be spent in the case can be stored in closed dishes and in the refrigerator and not longer than a week. For those to whom the subject of bone is as new as it is to me I will mention that there are other kinds of material for glue. For example, I've seen videos on youtube where people used hardened pieces instead of pellets. Apparently this is dried glue that looks like plates. Then they were broken into pieces and glue was prepared. After what I've read about multi-component formulations, a jar of pellets like this is a gift. No need to mix different components, look for them separately. Everything is much simpler. However, even in these conditions, I did not get the glue on the first try. For some reason, the first attempt looked quite strange. And that was understandable to a beginner like me. The granules floated on the bottom in the form of a cloudy sediment. Sort of like a dead jellyfish. I don't know what I did wrong. I was expecting something else. So I thought the pellets needed more time, they didn't dissolve enough. So I left them to infuse for another day. Then another day. Then it became clear that nothing was going to change, and the animal material would become very foul smelling as soon as I opened the jar. So I disposed of the first attempt as if it might mutate and turn into some kind of monster. I was careful, quick, and decisive. The second attempt was also unsuccessful. And I still don't know why? The only version of the failure of the first experience I could see was that I had diluted too few pellets in the water. And the second time I poured more pellets into the water. By the next morning, the jar looked completely different. Now it looked much more like a monster. There was no water in the jar at all. All the space was filled with a swollen mass that looked like jelly. Even the lid was dangerously swollen. Next, the glue had to be heated in a water bath. The jelly-like mass had to melt and become the bone glue. I poured some chalk into the jar and began to heat the whole mixture. But then something happened that I didn't expect. I thought the glue was supposed to be thick and viscous. But the jelly turned into a very liquid solution. It didn't even stick to my fingers that much. There was a warning in the recipe that the solution should not be boiled. Which I understood myself. It's a protein and overheating would just curdle it. So I was hesitant whether to heat it further or risk boiling my glue. It was still just as liquid. Since I don't know exactly what the ideal result should look like, I decided to give a second try and tried to glue my test pieces of elephant bone with it. At one point, I even started to have hope. As the glue began to cool in the jar, it became noticeably more viscous, and by the evening it had become solid. Not as hard as glass, more like bisque, if you poke it with a stick, you can feel the elasticity. But who knows, maybe that's the way it's supposed to be. And it needs more time to fully harden. But alas. After a couple days, I took my glued plates out of the vise and they came apart easily. And I had one more try. I wondered, what had I done wrong? What was the reason for the failure? After all, the second time the appearance of the jar was so different from the first version. Maybe it was my addition of chalk that spoiled everything? Maybe it should not be added at all? Or maybe it should be added only to the finished glue? I didn't know the right answer. The only way was to completely eliminate this component from the next attempt. If it's the chalk, it should work. And if it's not the chalk, the glue won't work without the chalk. I also thought that the reason was that I had added too many pellets the second time. The jar was bloated. Maybe the bloating caused air to get in? Maybe that's it? The glued halves held together much better. Honestly, I didn't try to tear them off using a knife, vise or anything else. But the pressure of my hands was not enough to break the bond. Let's see how strong the glue proves to be in the next stages. I'll be doing some test carving on this piece. It will show whether it will remain as strong then. This is how two jars with two types of glue look like. The lighter colored one is with chalk. This is to give you an example of how much chalk changes the color of the glue. There are a lot of questions with this component as well. In the future I will try adding it to the mortar again and see the results. At this point I will stop experimenting with bone glue. I have some answers. Experienced what bad attempts look like for sure. Next I need to build up my experience. Definitely will need to think how to make the solution in smaller doses. I just don't have that much bone for that amount of glue to use up. And to waste pellets every time to throw away so much leftovers is just a crime. At this point I can say I've said all I can on the subject of glue. There is nothing more to add. Only if there will be knowledgeable answers about what I did wrong.

Episode 1 So, I'll start a long story about the next lion. As I wrote earlier, I really want to devote more time to it and describe not only the work itself. One of the reasons is that for this information platform this school of marine sculpture is not as widely known as the French or English. I am talking about the Russian school of shipbuilding. And specifically about what features are characteristic of the sculptures on Russian ships. And it seems to me that acquaintance with this school will be curious not only for me, but also for others. Where does acquaintance with the peculiarities of the shipbuilding school usually begin? Of course with drawings. Preferably with historical primary sources. It is good that we live in times when such information is available and anyone can find enough information: from books, archives or the Internet. Except that looking at drawings, engravings or sketches has one nuance. It is quite easy to draw the design of the hull, engineering features, show the form. And to understand what exactly is drawn on the drawing is also simple. So it's easy to repeat it. But when it comes to sculptures everything becomes much more complicated. Sometimes it is very difficult to understand from a sketch what the artist wanted to draw, how his drawing can look in reality, in life. For example, try to understand what is drawn here? And how can you turn it into a three-dimensional sculpture? Looking at historical drawings of Russian lions it is also difficult to understand them accurately. During this lion project it has already been mentioned that people in the 16th-17th centuries imagined very roughly the appearance of animals. And sometimes drawings of horses, lions and other characters look strange. And this trend applies to different countries. And in ancient Russia the situation was exactly the same. Russian lions of the 17th century are still those amazing freaks. For example: And if you put next to lions from other ships, you can even note that they are relatives: So for a modern craftsman, the desire to replicate ancient ship sculptures seems to be a very interesting task. And looking at ship drawings alone is not enough. Something more is needed. Unfortunately, the example of Vasa's ship, when we have the opportunity to look at a real ship is a single exception. Not a single sculpture of the Russian lion has survived. Which leaves us with only one option. To look for preserved models of ships and to look how lions look on them. Fortunately models of ships have reached our days. Among them there are quite ancient, built during the early development of the Russian fleet. Here, for example, are some examples of surviving Russian sculptures of lions. to be continued...

Thank you. It's very nice to realize that.

Mark, you got me thinking. Indeed, why do we publish our own work? First, we do it when we need help and advice. And then the modeling community provides help, guidance and advice. Secondly, we do it for ourselves. Maybe even this point is the first and more significant. Every creator needs not just a viewer, but a positive response. An artist can draw pictures and hide them from prying eyes. He has the right to do so. But if a person does so, it may speak of problems. The artist wants to hang his work on the wall. It is important for someone to have it on a wall in a museum, and for someone it is enough to have a wall at home. The desire to share with others is a normal desire. In this case, I also hang my work on the wall. I feel emotions when I work with wood. And I want to share these emotions. I thought about the fact that I like not only to look at finished paintings or other works. I experience pleasure when I observe the process of work. I have channels in my bookmarks where authors make videos about how they paint, sculpt from clay, carve from wood or assemble some machines. I am interested in the process itself. That's probably why I'm also interested in showing my work, not just as a finished result, but as gradual progress. I have never thought about it before. It even became interesting to analyze it. It's my version of enjoying a hobby. I hold in my hands a wooden blank on which there is nothing yet, or there are only the first plowed traces. It is impossible to understand what the image is, but in my imagination I can already see how I want the sculpture to look. And I like to look at the new steps every time and compare the actual appearance with what exists in my fantasies. I thought of this as my personal option. Other people may have a completely different opinion. Each of us is different, special. And that means that not everyone can be close to what is close to me. What if everyone else on Earth sees the world differently? Is that enough to decide not to show my version? Maybe it really is. Then I'm like the person who paints pictures and hides them. After all, even someone who hangs his paintings in his house still shows them to others. To his family, to his guests, they can be seen by the letter carrier bringing the mail, by the neighbor who came to borrow salt. On this forum I also have "my own apartment" - this thread. I can put here what is interesting to me. And the rest is already a separate matter. People come here. I see that people leave badges under posts, showing that they liked something. There are those who write comments. And the fact that you wrote that you are interested in watching and reading and that you are disappointed with me made me think. Do I get personal pleasure from preparing large texts? Yes. Do I want to write in detail about my personal discoveries, even if others may have known it for a long time and have not found anything new? Yes, I want to share. If only one person reads me, is that enough for me to consider my costs too high and my feedback too small? I will try to prepare the material so that you will continue to find it interesting to read. I know that many more people read silently, otherwise the visit counter would show different data. We live in crazy times. I feel better when I focus on the ordinary stuff. When I reflect on hobbies, art, how people have been creative at different times. Not writing would be much harder. And if people get at least bits of positivity when they read it too, I'll be nothing but happy.

Mark, thank you for your words of encouragement. You always respond very actively to all my publications. It means that you are really interested in what I do. And I really appreciate your attitude and support. Right now I am in a state of bifurcation. On the one hand, I really want to publish in more detail. But on the other hand, I'm not sure if it's necessary for others. The material is quite specific, and not everyone may find it interesting and useful. Which is evident also because you are the only one who responded to my question. I don't know, is there any point in publishing in this case? Sitting for many hours at the computer to compose a text, to make corrections in the translation, there is a desire only when you see the benefit in it. But to go to such a thing without benefit for the readers? I don't know. I guess I won't waste my time. I apologize if I have upset your expectations. I'm not quite sure what you were trying to say. What "new chapter" means. Did you mean to suggest that each individual work should be done in a new topic? Or something else? I have very little knowledge of computers and a lot of things are not clear to me.

When you talk to experienced people, their experience comes in handy when you need advice. And this is a huge plus! But it is absolutely impossible to tell about their discoveries, keeping intrigue and not revealing everything at once. After all, experienced readers always know the answer in advance 🙂. You are absolutely right 👍 about what glue should be for this task. I wanted to describe it in the next issue so that I could tell you how I arrived at the right way. I have partially mentioned the right way now, because the internet gave me the answers when I was looking for a way. The problem is that a working glue has to be prepared. It is not available in a ready-made form. And modern man, to which I include myself, has become lazy. When everything can be bought ready-made, the news that you need to cook something is perceived already.... it's hard to find the right word... it is a mixture of fear, laziness and the certainty that somewhere there is a tube or a jar with a ready-made composition. And when I read about recipes for natural glues on websites, they were really perceived as something complicated, as if we are talking about witchcraft. So soon I will describe how I solved this problem.

(Didn't even know this photo survived. It was taken a long time ago, at that time it was not yet known about the existence of Beren's sketches of the main figure on the ship. At that time I tried to make my own version of what the sculpture on the breakwater could look like and what kind of character could be there). Now for the gluing. The results for walnut and bone were radically different. Glued together on cyanoacrylate, I could not tear the nuts from each other. The bond was very strong. But the halves of the bone came off very easily after the first attempts to work with cutters. The polished surface of the bone prevented the glue from catching. Other glues didn't work either. So I was faced with the question of what to do next? If I were to use the bone, I'd have to glue it together. And that proved to be a problem. The bone substitute, tagua nut, on the other hand, proved much easier to work with. And if we remember the previous posts about odor, this material gets one more additional bonus. And that's no small argument either. Believe me, ignoring the odor issue is not something everyone can do. The minutes I tried picking bone with a power tool, I was reminded of covida and the fact that many people lost their sense of smell from this virus. And I even regretted that I couldn't temporarily stop smelling. So it turns out that the tagua is the best choice and it has no downside? Mmmmmm.... No. We live in a world where everything has a downside. Or nuances that will have to be considered. So what are the minuses of tagua nuts? I received a whole bag of this nut from a customer. You can see from the photos that they are quite large pieces. However, there is a catch. The customer told me that he once ordered this nut specifically for this project. And this package is just a small portion of what he bought. In fact, he had to buy 8 kilograms of these nuts! But only a small fraction of them were good. And that's easily explained. If you order online, you are simply not able to see what exactly you are buying. And in what will arrive not all the nuts will be of good size. A lot more will be ones that will be small. If you plan on doing something very miniature, this fact may not be a problem. Or it might be. In addition, it is important to realize that the nut inside can have features that even an outwardly good nut can easily turn into a bad nut. The flesh of the nut may have cracks, and from the stem, on which the nut once hung, there is a hollow channel. And it too can fall into the area where it will cross your future sculpture. Walnut has one more peculiarity. I can't call it an outright disadvantage, but it can be called a possible problem. Remember, I said that I tried to heat the walnut during sanding and see if it would affect its appearance? And I wrote that I didn't notice any change in appearance. I can't say for sure now whether I was right then or whether I was wrong and the walnut did darken from heating. You can't just notice that. However, after gluing, a clear border became visible at the joint. I even tried to dig deeper into the joint. Both with a power tool and knives. The clear line is still visible. And there are situations where such a feature would be a disadvantage. Ideally, I would like the joint to be less visible. 5 процарапанный стык At this stage, I can't say for sure what exactly caused this dark line. Maybe, indeed, the aggressive sanding has darkened the walnut structure and it only became visible when gluing. Maybe this is how the material reacted to the cyacrine. Maybe if I change the glue or make sure that the walnut is not heated, the result will be different. Or maybe even under different working conditions the edge will remain visible. Only time and additional tests will tell. This is the end of this part of the descriptions. The topic has not yet exhausted itself completely. Later I will describe further searches for bone glue. And what I got in this search.

How did I begin to get acquainted with materials that were new to me? First of all, I needed to understand what are the limits of bone and tagua nuts, what are the limitations and disadvantages? And I started with the question of what to glue the bone with? Naive thoughts that I could just pick up glue at the building store were dispelled very quickly. There was no glue anywhere that promised it would work on the bone. I could think as much as I wanted about how easy it was to sell everything in the 21st century. It didn't help the cause. But that's impossible. There has to be a glue, and people have been working with bone for a long time. So I started asking the internet how to glue bone together. And in response, it started sending me to Hogwarts. The recipes were too unusual. Something like the following: take toad's feet, at midnight grind wormwood, grind dried rabbit ears in a mortar. On the night of May 32, start boiling the potion in a bronze cauldron, after the water boils, drop three even drops of unicorn sweat and stir gently with a silver spoon, 28 bars clockwise, then 14 in the opposite direction. Now that sounded about right. Honestly! It even made me scared. I scratched my chin and decided that I would still try gluing with those glues that would keep me safe from the Inquisition or from accidentally turning myself into Shrek. Several kinds of glue were bought at the store, ranging from the usual seconds of cyacrylate to some epoxy kind of glue. And at the same time I decided that I should do experiments not only on the bone, but also on tagua nuts. I was also very interested in them. What kind of material is this? So I took a couple of nuts. First, I tried picking them with knives. The texture of the nut was quite hard. It's like a dense plastic. The shape of the nuts is not exactly round. Rather, it even resembles a pyramidal shape with roundings. So it is enough just to grind the flat side on a grinding machine and get a flat plane at two nuts. At the same time during this grinding I checked how the walnut reacts to mechanical heating. What happens to it from friction? Will it not become darker or change in some other way? After all, if I will use an electronic tool in the future, I should know where unacceptable actions begin, which can spoil the result? Therefore, I deliberately tried to keep the nut in contact with the disk of the grinding machine long enough. I was satisfied with the result, I didn't notice any negative marks. But I will come back to this point a little later.

Thank you for your reply. I'll keep looking. The good thing about my lion project is that no one is in a hurry and I already have many applicants in line. So there is time to search. Anyway you gave me a good tip with the pharmacy portal. I had completely forgotten that there are some really cute raptors there. Next time I get to Hamburg I will definitely try to visit the museums you mentioned. Sometimes I think you have more museums than inhabitants. So you can see a lot and for a long time.

I would like to publish the story about making the next lion in a broader form. Even wider than it was done when publishing the material about the lion from the Vasa ship. I think it will be more interesting, as the next lion is likely to be from the category of less familiar. And the additional information will introduce something new. At least for me the period of work on the next sculpture was connected with new searches, I do not just sit next to the photos of the source and try to repeat the features of what I see. It was immersing myself in history, looking at several possible candidates for references, studying sculpture from the same period as the chosen figure, and much more. But I don't know if such a long narrative would be of interest to readers? Maybe it is superfluous and just photos will suffice? Is it interesting to watch the stages of work at all or is it easier to show the finished result. Which is better?

Yeah, that's right. Mammoth tusks are also on the list. I'd even say it's number one on the list. You could also list cow bone. I've never dealt with that kind of material before. I wonder how you can prove you're using a legal type of bone. That you're not illegally sourcing the material? For example, for exhibitions. Do you need to provide receipts from purchases, where it will be written what kind of bone sold? Is the proof of the forum, where the stages of work are published and you can see what the original material represented and in the finished product is it? I've never been interested in such questions, but in case it comes in handy. For example, after I took on this project, I had another idea. And it is related to the lion project. There is another type of bone that is used in ship modeling. It does not look as refined as items made of mammoth tusk or elephant tusk. Next to these materials, it even looks rustic. That's because it's cow bone. But cow bone has its own logic. It's more historical. French modeling of ships made of bone is closely connected with the captive sailors who, while imprisoned, built ship models out of this type of bone. As they were more readily available than even wood. So I had the idea to make a French lion out of bone. And to use cow bone. To emphasize a certain parallel with the historical source. That's a separate conversation. There are completely different complexities here, and it's just an idea for now. (museum installation with captive French sailors who occupy their lives by building crafts and ship models out of cow bones). But if I decide to take on this idea, I need to think ahead of time, what would I have to have as evidence? In terms of structure, cow bone is very difficult to confuse with elephant, walrus or mammoth tusk. But there would still need to be evidence that would be accepted as valid at the exhibition. I'm not likely to be able to show a receipt from the meat department of a grocery store.

I apologize for being off-topic. I just couldn't help but react when I saw the familiar lion portals. I'll ask you a question, maybe you know the answer. I am looking for different lions, sculptures of these animals that were placed on the breakwaters of ships. I've found a few. English lions, Danish, French, Turkish, Spanish, Russian, Italian. But no German ones. Maybe you know any German ship, where the decoration was a lion? I apologize for clogging up the thread. The answer can be in a private message, so as not to distract with unnecessary information. P.S. The clay city is really beautiful. It has a lot of interesting things in it. Just like Hamburg, for that matter. Been to your maritime museum twice already, but still have the feeling to go 3 or 4 more times.

One last thing about Gustav. That's how the two lions lived for a while. Temporarily took from my wife her cake box ( I don't know what to call this thing exactly, it's a case for cakes). Now instead of cakes, a couple of lions live inside. Convenient. For the lions - protection from dust, for the wife - protection from the smell of oil. I don't understand her, how can she not like the smell? Good thing misunderstandings are rare. But once a neighbor came in and almost fainted. The distortion made her think there were rat bodies in there. I had to calm the poor woman down. Then we laughed for a long time...

It was interesting to compare. I'll have to shoot it again later in the evening light, so that the shadows would be deeper. Compare it with artificial light.

Thank you for the high praise. I too am curious how the carving on the Fulminant will turn out. It's going to have its own nuances. Its own interesting points and its own challenges.

Oh, yeah! The smell! That's one of the topics that comes up first! Even wearing a respirator doesn't save you from the smell. At least it keeps out the dust. And the only way to work is to go to a desert island, otherwise the odor is insidious. It pisses off the people around you (family, neighbors). And they're already taking me out of the house. They won't let me back in. It is good that I have a separate room in the basement of our house. I go there, close the doors tightly and work there. Almost like in a submarine. ☢️

So, I got the materials I need to familiarize myself with. First and foremost is the bone itself. In my case, the customer gave me several different versions of elephant bone. The first kind was old billiard balls. They were once made from elephant tusk. Nowadays it is hard to imagine such a thing, they are molded from plastic, but it used to be different. The second kind of elephant ivory were these scraps. I don't know what they are. Most likely, they are just scraps that are no longer good for anything. Since my carvings are very small objects, scraps like this may well come in handy. Well, one of the things to make from these scraps is training material. Since I have never worked with this material this stage of work is very important. First you need to work on such pieces, which are not so miserable to waste for training. The third bone "donor" looked like this. These small thin strips once made a beautiful melody. These plates were inside a piano or grand piano. And were the percussion tips on the hammers that strike the strings inside that musical instrument. I hope I didn't get anything mixed up in the description, which I might have too. I am not an expert on the piano. In short, all kinds of elephant ivory was in the form of items already in use. And as they say, Fulminant will not be the cause of the death of any living thing. I have failed to mention only the last type of material. Actually, this kind of ivory can no longer be called ivory. It's a bone substitute. And it's a type of material I've never held in my hands until now. Never even heard of it. Or rather not so, I've seen this stuff before on some woodworking websites, but never paid attention to it. And now I'm holding THIS in my hands for the first time..... These are not fossilized dinosaur eggs. Or Khaleesi's stolen dragon eggs. These are tagua nuts. From the outside, they look like this. On the inside, they're a uniform white substance. It's dense to the touch. I don't know if this is the fossilized body of the nut or if it looks the same when fresh. Whether this nut is eaten or used as a material for carving or other crafts. I'm sure it's not hard to find information, I haven't looked. This is the kind of bone substitute that is used. At this point I'll step back a bit. And mention one more option for replacing elephant ivory. I heard about this material by accident. Unlike real bone or even unlike walnut, this material is completely synthetic. It is most likely a type of plastic. This material is called ELFORYN. I easily found several ads on amazon and other sites where you can learn more about this material and order it. In my case it will definitely not fit, I know that my customer is an active opponent of artificial materials and will not agree to the use of something like this. Therefore, I did not even begin to tell about this discovery. But what if someone finds it useful? So this is just information for thinking. I'll stop there for now. If anyone has any questions, I will do my best to answer them. A little later I will tell you about the first stages of getting acquainted with new materials. What advantages I saw, and what disadvantages I found. But about that a little later. I need to prepare the text, and for me this process is not quick.

So far, everything written in this thread has been about theoretical searches. Which is understandable. Moreover, I am sure that more than once we will have to pay attention to these or those questions that need to be solved with books in hand, covered with historical sketches. Or simply with a ruler, pencil and paper. But along with this, it is time to develop the topic further. And to touch already practical affairs in the shipyard on my desk. But for that, too, we need to pay attention to the explanations. It so happens that the Fulminant is in many respects a novelty. For the first time this ship is being made. It is the first time we have been able to see documents from the archives. But for me personally, this very "first time" started at the stage of thinking whether to take on this project at all. The thing is that for me personally there is a lot here that I have never done before. And therefore I have no experience. And first of all it concerns the technique of execution. The customer, when he contacted me, said that he wanted this model to use not quite ordinary materials. They are not new, there will not be any creptonide, anaptanium or something fantastic. On the contrary, the materials that the customer wanted to use are familiar. They've been used to make ship models for a long time. But still, it is not a very common material. I personally have never had any experience in this direction. What are we talking about? The customer stipulated that in the jewelry should be used bone and gilding..... And that means that my work will be through experimentation, exploration, mistakes and fixing them. I will also sometimes describe my actions in detail. I don't know how useful and interesting this will be for others. But I think that I am not the only one who discovers new things during this project, so there is hope that my findings and mistakes will be at least interesting not only to me alone. And for myself, this style of presentation will be useful. I have already faced the fact that when I do something new, I eventually forget how I did it. And when there is an opportunity to reread myself, it is a good way to save time in the future. Who knows, maybe someday I'll have to do again what I'm doing now for the first time.

The epic about the lion from the Vasa ship has come to an end. Here are the last photos. As long as the appearance stays that way. The figure is coated with oil and needs time for it to soak in. I already know that gradually the color of the wood will change. It is still an open question whether I will tint the sculpture with something or not? Maybe I will, but not now. I will decide when I gather a small group of other lions and see how they will look. On the one hand, I want to bring this lion closer to the original with the help of color, so that it would be darker, as on the ship. But I'm not sure yet. The darkening may hide the scuffs and scabbiness that I tried to show.

And the final view of the shield:

The main sculpture from Vasa is almost to the finish line. Only a small detail remains. The lion is holding a shield with a coat of arms. And that's the shield that needs to be carved. There's not much to tell. The only thing to note once again is the issue of irregular shapes on the sculpture. Which again raises the question of how to evaluate the work of master carvers. How normal it was to do a work with such strong errors. And as I said, the shield stands apart in this regard. It is a piece that fits quietly on the table. The person who carved it had all the conditions to achieve a perfect result. In addition, we can say that a living organism may well have asymmetry in the structure of the body. But here with a coat of arms it can no longer be said in any way. The form should have symmetry, correct curves and if there are repeating elements of decoration, they should be the same with the correct gaps between them. And other rules of ornamentation. And the shield by all parameters and by all possible evaluations has only minuses. Everything that could have symmetry is made crookedly. There is a feeling that it was done by someone in a drunken state or for the first time in his life took tools in his hands. It is especially surprising that the decor looks much better elsewhere. Even if you compare the crest on the transom and on the breakwater you can see a strong difference. Why there could be so many mistakes on the flagship is the question. With this in mind, my task in this phase of the work was turned 180 degrees. Usually you have to try to do everything perfectly. Everything should be even and correct. Now it was necessary to make such errors on purpose, which would be similar to the original. When I first started this project and worked on the facial features (or more correctly the face) of the lion, I already had a very similar situation. I wrote that the lion had crooked eyes, different cheekbones. And then I was wondering if I should do the same. Wouldn't it get the feeling that the wrong parts of the face would look weird. Like the author likes to work with a shot glass in his hands? Then I decided I wouldn't correct the mistakes, I'd leave them the same as on the original. Now, when I look at the finished version of the lion I am pleased to note that in general everything looks harmonious. Asymmetry can be noticed, but it doesn't look too noticeable. So now I was no longer questioning whether to make corrections at the shield? And this is what I got.

I have never been an expert on the subject. One could say that even now I have not dived deep into it. Rather, I lazily searched on the surface. According to the images found, it can be said that grenadier grenades are depicted in a rather monotonous way. In different countries and at different times almost unchanged. I did not find any examples of any special marks on the grenades. However, there are hand bombs with monograms. But these are either examples of gift souvenirs, where the cartouche denotes a certain person. Or it's the mark of a foundry. If we assume that the signs on Beren's bombs stand for some letter, it is worth noting that it is a letter, as there is no such writing in French, Latin or Greek. I tried to find any word that might begin with the letters "sigma" or "epsilon". But my imagination does not go further than the words "Zeus", "Jupiter", "Fulminant" or "Ludovic". And none of the above has any connection with these letters. The sign only resembles a letter, and if such an image were not repeated on different elements of decoration, it could well be called a simple crack. Of course, cartouches and monograms can have fanciful curves. Sometimes you need to break your head to understand what letters are encrypted in the cartouche. So I haven't found any serious clues to the idea that the mark on the pomegranates means anything. But that could mean I wasn't looking hard enough. The solution lies on the surface: Try to copy Beren's drawn zigzags as closely as possible and make them on both sides of the hull. In this case, I will definitely not make a mistake. You could say that the question was born out of nothing, and the answer is the most predictable. But it was interesting to ponder a small detail. And maybe in time the answer will be found after all.....

I suddenly noticed that the cracks had something in common. They are not randomly drawn, but resemble letters. Like "sigma" or "epsilon." And the slope is very similar. Maybe it's some kind of sign, not just a crack. Logically, it probably means a hand bomb, not a cannonball, I think. All ships have cannonballs, and it's not something distinctive that stands out in the decor of the ship. A hand grenade, on the other hand, can be compared to a lightning bolt in the hands of Zeus. He throws them. And it doesn't make sense to tie a cannonball with a rope. I hardly understand why such ropes on the grenade, but here we can assume that it is for hanging or so shown bickford cord. In any case, there is little point in finding an answer to whether this grenade is a hand grenade or a cannonball. That in one case or the other will have no effect on the final appearance on the thread. Whether there is a crack there or some kind of mark is a different question. We'll have to look for other options. I think I've already seen similar parts on some ship somewhere. But I don't remember that there were any signs.

By the way, in the letter from the customer, he highlighted the image of the grenades. And now I catch myself thinking that I don't know the exact answer. I just never paid attention to it. In the collection of sketches with Fulminant, there are several places where images of hand bombs are repeated. And everywhere they have different nuances. In some cases, they're just balls surrounded by flames. On the dome of the side gallery, the ropes that criss-cross around the balloon are clearly visible. In other places there are strange touches. What do they mean? I used to take these broken lines as the moment of grenade bursting, when the hull has already begun to rupture and this is how the cracks are shown. And so these cracks can always be in different shapes. But what if I'm wrong? Maybe something else is drawn there? Maybe it's some letter, for example, or some sign that should be only like this? Can I make different patterns on the other side (if they are cracks) or must I copy all the curves exactly (if it carries some meaning)? Decided to find out and saw that there are different variations. There are also balls without any drawings. And there are some that have some decorations on them.