brunnels

That looks absolutely fantastic with some WOP.

Howdy everyone, happy monday. Here is my progress update from the past few days. My time was mostly spent on cannon duty which means lot of tedious work on lots of very small parts. Luckily the Olympics kept me entertained while doing things like char removal on 80 cannon wheels. But first I installed the water pump handles, and the caps. I'm out of nails so once I receive some more I will pin the caps down with the nails per the instructions. I also added the rope railing around the steps. I'm not sure if I am going to keep the rope fairly tight, or if I should add some droop to the lines, I'm thinking a little droop will look more natural. While I am waiting on more nails to come in the mail for the deadeye chain plates, I decided to do some work on the cannons. Working on the guns always gives me more respect for you builders who do larger ships with more guns. Each cannon just has so many pieces and lots of small pieces takes time no matter how good the kit design. Carriages painted ready for installation of the guns. When I first saw the design of the carriages I wasn't sure If I would like the cap squares being one piece with the carriage side. But after putting these together I must say, doing a little detail painting on the cap squares with some black paint is FAR easier than fiddling with some super small PE pieces. I really like this design and once painted you don't even notice that they are one piece. Cannons painted Cannons installed on the carriages. Cannon cross bars, and 7 eyebolts installed. Next step will be touching up the eyebolts and crossbars, and then installation of the wheels.

Amazing model, I had to do a double take when I saw how massive it really was, the size of some of these kits really gets lost in the macro haha.

Can't go wrong with any Vanguard kit, plus the Duchess is a beauty. I look forward to your progress.

Does anyone know where I can get the brass nails or a similar size that are used in the kit? I just realized the deadeye chain plates also require some nails, and I have run out of the nails.

Upper Frieze's: Finished the upper frieze work, these were quite a bit smaller than the lower frieze patterns, so It was hard to do a ton of shading and highlights without it looking like an absolute mess. So I kept it fairly simple on these, they don't look the best on macro, but they do look acceptable when viewing from normal viewing distance. The upper patterns on the bow are very small, so these only got a very simple Ochre Yellow on top of Ochre Brown base. Lastly I painted and glued in the 4 cleats that go in the bulwarks on the gun deck.

For my Sphinx I printed mine on some 200g brochure paper I found at work. I had the same thought about applying some varnish on top, but it ended up making the lines on the paper bleed and not look good. I used a laser printer, so not sure if paper type or printer type would make a difference on preventing the colors from bleeding. Here is how it looks on my sphinx.

Howdy everyone, thanks for the likes and compliments on the frieze work it really boosted my painting confidence. While working on the frieze work between coats I have also been working hard on equipment on the gundeck. Ships stove: Assembly is very straight forward, assemble to wood frame, glue on the brass PE and then paint. I used Vallejo black mixed with a little steel pigment powder. I have never really used pigment powder, so I am not really sure if I used too much or too little, but I am happy with how the stove turned out. I really struggled with painting the bricks, I have discovered mixing paint is a skill I am not very good at. After probably a dozen attempts I got a brick color I was happy with. Next I used a light grey wash for the brick mortar. I have never used washes before, and I never really figured out how to use it properly. No matter what I did I always seemed to remove the wash in the cracks when trying to remove the excess wash. Finally I just used a 000 paint brush and painted it in the cracks as best I could. The doors in front of the stove. Can someone explain the purpose for these doors, because their purpose doesn't really make sense to me. The doors were pretty straight forward, glue two sides together add the hinges and door handles and glue on the frame. The frame I had some issues with as it was very fragile and I snapped it in a couple places. I repaired It best I could with a piece of 1x2mm wood I had, but some of the frame is still missing above the closed door. Capstan: The capstan looked like it would be very fiddly to put together, but it was actually a very easy process that went together in no time. Here is how the ship looks as of 7/30/24, hopefully I haven't missed covering anything.

Yes I paint them while still attached to the sheet.

Thanks, that's what I was trying to go for.

I have started to work on the frieze work. This pretty much is the limit of my artistic abilities at this scale, I've always had lots of respect for miniature painters and this just increased that respect even more. It took me several days and tests to decide what colors to use and how to use them. I ended up with a base of Ochre brown, followed by Ochre Yellow as a main color with highlights of Ivory white and red. I found that at this scale you really have to keep it simple or it starts to look really messy so I decided to use no more than 4 colors. It took a while to learn how to highlight and shade on these really small parts, if you look at it with a macro it may look messy, but from a couple feet away I am very satisfied with how it turned out. I still have the upper frieze work which I am going to work on this week. Those will be a bit harder as they are figures and the patterns at the bow of the ship get incredibly small, so I will probably have to minimize the colors even more on the smaller stuff. Here is my lower frieze work. The PE around the gangway steps didn't fit, so I will have to hand paint those portions.

Looks great, I really debated hard with myself on using gold when I started the kit. Are you using the Vallejo Liquid gold? I tried using their Liquid Copper paint and haven't had much success with it.

Can't wait to follow the progress on this one.

I like your 3 piece cheeks, I wish I would have thought of that method lol. Red and blue on the head looks great.

Yes, I started with Varnish just so the paint wouldn't soak into the very thin wood, painted white, and varnished again. By the time it had its finish varnish dried it had curled up quite a bit. I'm not sure if several days between the books was necessary, but I was working on other projects anyway so I just let it sit for that long.

Beautiful model all around, I wish I could paint like that, the frieze work is exceptional.

I decided to change things up a bit and started working on the deck furnishings, and interior of the ship. Main Mast Bitt's, Waterpumps These are all pretty straight forward to put together and install. Basically just cutting out the laser cut parts, removing the char, drilling a couple holes, and glue. Great Cabin I decided to paint the great cabin doors Ivory white to match the cabin and leave all the others natural finish with white window frames. These pieces wanted to curl quite a bit whenever they came in contact with glue and paint, so after they were finished I placed them in between a couple heavy books and let them sit for a couple days to straighten back out. Next I painted the Quarter deck frames that are used to hold up the cabin door patterns. I also removed char on the topside. I next glued installed my printed checker floor, and eyebolts in the deck and surrounding gun ports. QG framing and great cabin door patterns glued in place. The water pumps and bitts are finally glued into the deck. Lastly I spent an evening putting in the eyebolts for the rest of the gun ports. It's tasks like this that give you respect for the guys doing ships like Victory with a ton of guns. How the model currently looks.

I used Vallejo white primer before I painted. As @Thukydides mentioned, I would get a primer designed for modeling or miniatures that is very thin.

Fantastic work, I think many will use your log as a reference for painting for years to come. I have enjoyed your log very much. Any plans for a next project?

Having done both an Occre kit and in the middle of a Vanguard kit, my recommendation would be to go with Vanguard. I found the Occre youtube videos not as helpful as I would have thought with the builder in the videos often doing steps differently than the instructions and other steps barely being shown enough to even help, and you almost need to rely on their videos some because their paper instructions are pretty poor in my experience. Vanguards instructions have been incredibly good, with very detailed pictures and the written instructions were very clear and detailed. Vanguards kit designs are also much more beginner friendly with many laser cut pieces that fit easily together, have tons of detail, and were designed for that specific vessel. Occre will have much fewer pre-cut parts, will offer less detail, and many of the parts will probably be designed to be used for several of their kits and won't quite be to scale or have quite the same amount of detail. Also of note, my Occre kit was lacking in material in quite a few areas, I had to purchase more materials on several stages of the build. As @ccoyle said, I would highly recommend getting the vessel that has more interest to you first, but I would look at some build logs for each kit and look at the details of the end results to see what you would prefer to have as an end result.

It's been a week since my last update. I have been working hard on the stern of the ship and decided it would be best to save all the images for one post. Column Decorations. I started by painting these with a base of Ochre Brown, then painted the raised portions with Ochre yellow. Next I started on the resin stern decoration piece. Sadly I got so focused while painting this piece I forgot to take pics of the steps. I started with blue as the base for the piece. I then painted all the raised portions with a base of Ochre Brown. I then started slowly painting the details with a very fine 000 brush using Yellow Ochre, followed with tons of touchups of all the colors. Once I was happy with the shading and highlights, I applied a Varnish followed with a light wash using Vallejo Umber wash, and then wiping away the excess wash. End result glued on the ship. On the QG's, I painted and installed the PE shingles. Then I started on the upper fretwork pieces. I painted the infill's blue, and installed. I really regret how I dealt with the fretwork piece, after doing mine I looked at some logs to see how others handled this piece, and I think many others did a much better job with this piece by cutting the rail on the hull instead of the fret piece. I really wish I would have gone that route as it looks much better than the route I went. But that will just be another mistake I always have to glare at. Next I painted and glued in place the two Eagle Decoration pieces, and the small decoration piece that goes above the windows in the red painted area. I was expecting the thin PE decoration to be hard to deal with, but to my surprise the piece actually behaved and went on pretty smoothly. Next, was finishing the Quarter Galleries decorations. The piece below the windows was pretty straight forward. Upon looking at the actual Sphinx plans I purchased, I noticed that the lower counter decoration appeared to be a carving. I have no idea what is correct, but in my mind if there was an intricate carving then they probably wouldn't have just painted it black to match the gunwale. So I repainted the lower counter in blue. I then added the lower counter carving PE pieces. I am happy with the decision to switch to blue, it really looks sharp and helps take the eye away from that ugly upper fretwork piece I hacked up. Lastly on the stern I added the name which took a really long time as the small letters are really hard to handle, followed by the two decorations next to the name. Here are a couple more photos of the mostly completed stern. I want to give a small review of this primer. I have always had trouble getting paint to stick to PE, no matter what I tried. This go around I have tried "Mr. Metal Primer-R", and this stuff works great, I have had no trouble getting acrylics to stick to PE after using this stuff. Only complaint is it seems kind of hard to find in the USA. While I was waiting for paint to dry on the stern I was working on other things as well. Gangway steps. I found it was easier to first glue on the lower piece of the step to the hull and then go back and add on the top pieces rather than assembling off the hull and then gluing on as one piece. Steps painted to match. Next I skipped forward a bit and started on the hatch covers by removing char and gluing. I also glued together the ladders. I really like these Vanguard ladders, they are pretty easy to put together, and look great once assembled. Way better than the crappy PE ladders that came with my Occre Beagle kit. Lastly I have started on the rudder straps that go on the hull. I am going to run out of nails that came with the kit, so I am going to have to figure something out for the other side.

Wow, that's some beautiful planking.

Beautiful model, I really enjoyed your log.

I have gone back and forth a couple times on whether to paint the lower counter black or leave natural, and at the moment my decision is to leave natural. I believe this is the sketch the painting was based off of.

Rudder. Nothing about this part is hard to put together, but it was one of those parts that just wanted to give me trouble. I lost the two smallest pintle straps that sit on the highest position on the rudder, not a huge deal as they are at least the smallest of the pintle straps and can easily be imitated with some paint. I then broke 3 micro drill bits in the rudder, 1 from cleaning wood glue out of the pre drilled holes, and two drilling out holes for the pieces that connect the rudder to the stern post. I need to find some quality micro drill bits, because what I have seem to break just from looking at them. Lastly when gluing the rudder to the hull I was applying pressure to push it into place and the rudder took a sudden turn sideways from the pressure and broke off the horizontal post (tiller?) that goes into the hull and that piece is now somewhere inside the ships hull. Last step to complete are the straps that bolt into the ships hull. Next I switched my attention to the stern of the ship starting with the windows. A big inspiration of what I want to go for is the painting of the British fleet during the Penobscot Expedition by Dominic Serres. This is one of my favorite naval paintings, I love how the sterns of the ships are represented, your eyes are just immediately drawn to them. Plus two of the Sphinx's sister ships, Camilla, and Galatea were present at the action depicted in the painting, so I thought it would be an appropriate painting to take inspiration from. My other goal is to use colors other than gold paint. Luckily @Blue Ensign pretty much already achieved a really good representation of what I am going for using shades of Ochre, so I am going to take a lot of inspiration from him as I feel his stern colors are a perfect fit for matching Dominic Serres Penobscot painting. I started with fitting the windows into place using a file, and then gluing them in place with Kristal Klear glue. Next I painted the window frames with Vallejo Brown Ochre, these were then glued to the windows. And here is what the ship looks like as of now.