rybakov

So, what I use for a patina is this colour by Citadel. Diluted with some water, and then a final step of light brush with the yellow. Here are two pics with the patina before the final brushing. 
I'm currently working on the bow. I had to correct the positionning of the elements. 

 
 

Thanks Marc !!
Concerning the blue, it's quite hard to tell. But yes, it would be something like this one below.
Here are also some general shots. I hope you like them !! I find that it reproduces quite faithfully the images of the engravings and paintings of the time... Which is the purpose of this model. Not to give all the details of a construction but to reproduce the overall image that this type of ship could give. Anyway, it's nice to have a model that progresses quickly !













 

For the rudder fittings I really hesitated to use what the kit provided...... To go faster... But it was still a little too disproportionate and it didn't require so much effort to redo, so I redid. The stern is finished, I'll do some shots tomorrow. In the end I'm pretty happy with what I managed to get out of the parts, there were quite a few modification, but the image is quite faithful to Berain's drawings and the general impression is really nice !

I continue working on the stern and I did little improvements. I focused too much on the contour of the galleries and I didn't pay much attention to the alignement of the different elements inside them. Making all this fit correctly is really a pain but it's worth it, The final result will not be perfect but I think it will be nice enough.
 
 
 

Hi fellows !
I'm currently building the stern, I knew it would require a lot of adjustment and I've not been disapointed. Every single piece of metal has been grinded, the wood parts have been vastely customized, but I'm quite happy with how it turned. I think I managed to make the stern look like the Berain drawing (more or less) better than the manual did. The main work was making the galleries less wide, and trying to respect the continuity in the structure and between the different parts. 
The work is going on !
 
 
 

L'Ambitieux is progressing well these last weeks, and shows nice volumes and curves. Of course I slightly modified what Altaya planned but not that much. The wood of the decks was too yellow for my taste, so I sand the decks and painted them with a very diluted brown/grey mix. I like the result quite well. It's only a kit but it's very rewarding to see something that already looks like a ship of the line after a few hours spent on it. I would not say I rush the build but I do it as quickly as possible and it's very different to the Soleil Royal, on which I want every piece to be as perfect as possible. L'Ambitieux is a perfect funny and entertaining project. I hope you like it.

 
 

And after the fastidious step of sanding, the hull is correct and shows nice volumes. I used the parts provided for the bow, the keel and the sternpost, they fitted perfectly. 

For the planking of the hull I managed to do it very quickly (three or four days) so it's far from perfect but it's sufficient since it will not show at the end. 
 

Concerning the guns, Altaya provided guns to prick and I really dislike this solution. So I had to enlarge the guns with brass cylinder, make them mini carriages, and modify the inner structure of the frame. I also had to drill the guns. It was made very quick but I'm happy with the result, it's not great but clean enough for what I want. The bronze guns were painted the same way I did for the Soleil Royal. 

Then comes the planking of the decks, with sycomore wood. At first I draw on the deck frame and then glue the planking, with some pencil on the sides to simulate the caulking. Finally I plant the nails (brass wire) according to the monograph. The doors were painted red, and two pieces of wood were added to fit the curvature of the deck. Altaya didn't made any inner planking, but I did. The first lath of wood next to the deck is wider. I made some final tries of golden paint but I wasn't still happy with them so here is the color I chose for the decoration.

Thanks Marc ! Yes I'm 100% back in the game ind it feels great ! 
Nothing very special about the begining of the build. The frame assemble very well, the keel is straight. Then I made custom planking of the front with custom doors, I couldn't go with the kit ones. They were not ugly but a bit oversized. I also remade the duckboards, according to the scale (and the monograph). Altaya's effort was not that bad, they had the good number of elements and the good size, but the stitch was too large. 

Here is what the finished model should look like, and the first parts. I'm really pleased by the castings and the guns. Compared to the monstruous guns they made for their Soleil Royal, it's night and day. The rear metal piece even has a curvature. The scale say 1/59 on the first booklet cover, and 1/74 inside the booklet. If you compare to the 1/72 scale plan of the monograph of Boudriot you can see that it's strictly the same. Other parts are also compliant to the monograph. I tried a golden painting for the decoration but was not very satisfied with it. Ultimately it will be Napoli yellow. 
 

Hi everyone ! Parallel to my Soleil Royal, I'm working on a kit of L'Ambitieux, a ship of the line built in 1691. Altaya did some monstruous kits before this one but I had to admit when I discovered the first parts of their Ambitieux that they were of very high quality. I know this ship quite well because I used the monograph of Jean Boudriot of the same name to help myself draw the plans of my Soleil Royal. Though, Jean Boudriot did something strange for his monograph. He took a original drawing of a 3 deck ship of the line of 1680 by Blaise Pangalo (the plan doesn't show any decoration except for the figurehead that is a lion), and he added the decoration of the "real" Ambitieux (from which we have the drawing of the decorations but not the plans of the hull) except for the lion of Pangalo that he kept. He also named his monograph "L'Ambitieux" because he thought it was an ambitious project. Quite confusing. 
Altaya was well inspired and they kept the figurehead of the real Ambitieux, and provided some really good castings for the metal parts (guns, decoration). I never saw such good work on a kit, and if you add that I was immerged in the monograph of J.Boudriot since a few years at this time, that the real Ambitieux fought the battle of Barfleur/La Hougue next to the Soleil Royal in 1692 (Tourville even went on the Ambitieux after the Soleil Royal suffered too much damage to continue), and the kit is the same scale than my SR, it was enough to convince myself to have a try at this project. 
Of course this is a kit and in no way it will look like an arsenal model. It will remain a kit, and will be a recreative, simple, funny project when the SR is very demanding and very laborious. 
First, here are the drawing of the real Ambitieux by Jean Berain. 
 
 
 
 

Thank you, guys, for all of the ideas and input.  Dan, as a glasses-wearer for most of my life, I had that same thought about bending eyeglass arms in sand.
 
I took a look at Heller’s on-line part order form, and that all seems very straight-forward.  I may, yet, try another more gentle heat approach.  I’m leaning toward securing the straight part into a rounded form and submerging in merely very hot, and not boiling water for a period of time.
 
In the meantime, It was necessary to make new corbels for the upper balcony.  The stock is made up from a piece of .0625 and a piece of .020 styrene laminated together:



Below is the kit’s stock corbel for this balcony level:

I ordered my Bitumen of Judea from an Italian vendor, who subsequently emailed to say that he couldn’t ship this small bottle of combustible material.  So, then, I tried to order from a UK vendor.  We’ll see whether that order sticks.
 
I’ve made the window panes and have begun painting the third-gallery window plate.  There’s a whole bunch of stuff that is very nearly ready to go together.
 
Thank you for your interest, the likes, your comments and suggestions.

Well, like Michael, I had a spare section of the same railing that I was trying to bend, so I prepared it in exactly the same way.  I also kept the plastic floor that I had cut out.
 
Results were mixed.  I had the water at a low boil, and I started with the floor piece first.  There was a distinct moment when the plastic became floppy, so I took it out and had enough time to press it around my camber form:
Not too bad.  When I did the same for the pierced railing, results were not too good.  When the part became malleable, it shrank and distorted in the thinner areas:

This would not be salvageable.  I wonder whether tying the part down to the form and submerging in less than boiling water might induce the bend I’m after, without all of the distortion.
 
The other variable is that my test pieces are made from this brittle gold styrene, which lacks the suppleness of the grey stuff.
 
I could just go for it and try a second experiment on my keeper piece tomorrow.  I glued the center sections together today, and wanted to give them a day to fully harden.
 
Or, I could simply extract the pierced rail stanchions and build up everything around them, as I did for the middle balcony.
 
I’ll mull it over for a day.  Re-making those rail stanchions by hand would be a very time-consuming carving project to do well.
 
 

I’m a little stalled on the bow, while I await delivery of Liquid Bitumen of Judea, for staining of the hawser cables.  And, so, I have returned to the stern.
 
I’ve made up and fitted the upper stern balcony base:


Relative to the balcony below, you can see to some small degree how the starboard side projects slightly further aft.  It is not so visually disruptive that I absolutely must decrease the starboard depth of this upper balcony to compensate.  If I have to, I will do so later, but in the meantime - I am doing a bit of an experiment.
 
I am trying to see whether I can salvage the ornamental facade of the stock upper balcony, while successfully incorporating the round-up of the stern.  The stock part is flat-faced, but I have two of them to pull from.  As it happens, I can see a path toward filling the center section and the step-back panels to either side:


After cutting out the floor and rough-wasting:

After cleaning up the top scarf and wasting the bottom moulding:
 

If I were to extract the outboard panels from my extra balcony, and splice them-in the same way, then I can perfectly fill the span with what would be a relatively labor-intensive thing to make from scratch.
 
The deck camber is right-on.  The difficulty lies in introducing the round-up.  I had a spare middle balcony, so I cut out the floor and tried to induce a heat-bend over an open flame.  The results were not so good:
 







The variable thicknesses of the part lead to unequal heat distribution of the flame, and when the part becomes malleable, it happens very suddenly.  If you’re a second too late, the thin parts become irreversibly distorted.  I don’t think this is the way.
 
I will cut out and join the additional segments I need, and I will join and glue them together.  I may glue the whole thing to thin backing plastic, and then I will try taping the assembly to my camber form, which is almost identical to the round-up pattern.  I will see whether a natural bend can be induced over a period of time.
 
For a moment of Zen, here’s the Tanneron model on her waterline:
 

 
 

It’s been a pretty solid week.  Headrail painting continues in the evenings.  I also finished up the window plate detailing.

I had trouble making the raised panel framing out of a single piece of .020 styrene, as I had done before.  Rather than make myself crazy, I cut out and used the curved lower portion of the frame, and then I pieced-in the straight sides and tops from strip plastic:

I cut raised panels for the doors from the stock stern plate.  For the door handles, I had run out of scroll castings, so I just made a pair from sheet styrene:

Completed window plate:

The acetate windows before greying-in the leading and trimming to size:

I hope everyone enjoys a happy and safe new year!
 
All the best,
 
Marc

Alright, so this is a go:

Also, I might add, that this headrail arrangement is indicative of this later evolution in head construction in the 1680’s:
 

And a dated (1692) drawing of Le Terrible, also by Berain:
 

In contrast to the 1670’s:
 


 

The Berain drawings date to the time of the refit.  Berain does not officially become designer of ornament to the King’s arsenals until after Lebrun’s death in 1690, but his famous stern drawing is a re-working of the original design by Puget - the underlying conception for which was established by LeBrun.


The quarter drawing, I have argued, is consistent with the evolution in QG design (closed lower bottle on middle deck level, wrapping main deck balcony, QD amortisement), in the 1680s.  There is strong correlation in the design elements that make up the windows and decorative rails between quarter and stern drawings.  What is somewhat confusing to me is that this quarter drawing lacks the flawless continuity of the stern drawing; there are design problems with the quarter drawing that would lead to an impractical construction, if taken literally.  Also, this drawing shows the extremely pronounced aft sheer that would have been a feature of 1670 (see how the wales/precients are cut completely by the aft ports), yet the stern height is definitely not as high as that time period.

Also baffling is the cropping of the image.  At the right margin, the drawing ends in a soft line, but the angle of that line, relative to the digital right margin, makes it seem as though the ocean water is cascading downhill and that the ship is sinking, bow first.  Rotate the drawing 15 degrees counterclockwise and one’s perception of the thing changes dramatically.
 
All of this suggests that the heading, “Bouteille du Vaisseau…” is a later notation than the date of the drawing.  It is the heading that has determined the modern cropping of the drawing.  Why it is notated at such an odd angle to the original intent of the drawing is anyone’s guess.

The yellow is so fragile, and it already needs re-touching.  I will wait for that, though, until after the installation.  As I have throughout the model, I use the darker gold Citadel Armor as a base coat, and then I highlight with the bright gold.  It creates a nice, if subtle sense of depth:

 



Next, I’ll do all the gilt work for the starboard side.  I’m also ready to begin making the third tier of stern lights.
 
Thank you for stopping by.  More to follow..

Michael and T_C - thank you very much!  And, of course, thank you all for the likes and stopping by.
 
Painting on the headrails continues.  I’ve been through a round of re-touches and I’ve applied the distress wash.  If I may so so, they look pretty good.  The wash does a world of wonders.  Pics to follow after gilding and grey-washing of the horses.
 
I have also been busy drafting the third and final tier of stern lights.  This was interesting, for me, as I had to remind myself of a few important design considerations.
 
Firstly, I had increased the camber of the middle-tier of lights because the arc of the lower tier would have appeared too flat (in a shorter arc segment), if I had remained consistent.  It seemed like an additional increase in camber, for the top tier would not pay dividends, so I maintained the middle arc of camber.
 
I believe this will frame a nice upward sweep to the tafferal frieze for Apollo and his chariot.   What I am aiming for is best expressed by the magnificent work of Olivier Gatine on his magnificent La Belle.

There is an elegance of line, IMO, that really elevates this model above any other attempt I have seen of this subject - and there have been many really good ones.  He really captures something, here.
 
I can only dare to dream and attempt to emulate the finer points of his craft.  Here is where my upper tier stands for now.  I have to apply this drawing to a card template so that I can really see it on the model:

The drawing is a bit muddled from previous camber lines that were flatter, and subsequently fixed under hairspray.
 
As I have always said - this model is an amalgamation of compromises, and my process has yielded a few less desirable inconsistencies.  Because I have had to draw each level of the stern, as the model has become a concretely measurable thing, there is not always perfect continuity of line:

I missed my opportunity to make fine adjustments in that middle tier of drafting.  Here, it is readily apparent that the pilasters don’t line up very well from one level to the next.  Fortunately. the balcony rails help to soothe the visual dissonance.  The Four Seasons figures are also giving me a big assist, here, in obscuring these alignment problems.
 
Comme-ci, comme-ca.  It is all still a vast upgrade over the stock kit.

Well, I’ve got the ocher cut-in on the port side, and I’m a third of the way through the ocher, starboard.  You can’t really tape these lines because of the limited access and curved shapes:
 



There is still much to paint here.  I have to grey-wash the horse and the cathead figure.  I still haven’t muted the colors of the red and yellow ocher, and of course none of the gilt work has been done.  Little by little, though, we are getting there.

Hello,
many thanks to you for your interest and your contributions, as well as thanks to the many LIKES.
 
Continued: Clarifying the yard arms
After researching contemporary ship models from the Musée national de Marine, I assembled a collection of yard arms as shown below:

As you can see, there were the most diverse forms of yardarms, probably also depending on the shipyard in which these yards were manufactured. But they all have the "spiky" cleats, which do not always stick out vertically, but often horizontally and are mainly to be found on the topsail yards. The yard arms of the lower yards were somewhat simpler and often designed like the following example from L'Achille 1804:
 

Source: Musée national de Marine, L'Achille 1804

Source: monograph La Créole v. J Boudriot
 
Taking into account the results of the research in connection with Boudriot's drawings, I tried, initially in drawing, to represent the yards of the Mars yards of La Créole as they might have looked. In particular, I orientated myself on the yard arm of the yard on the model of the Le Suffren 1829. Not only does the period fit, the Le Suffren was also designed by the naval architect P. M. Leroux, like the La Créole. Therefore, I see my subsequent attempt at reconstruction as a thoroughly realistic variant.

The cleats may also have been vertical. In this respect, I will also draw a variant and then make a decision.
Sequel follows …

At LA CRÉOLE the stun'sail boom irons probably looked like this: