10th-11th century Byzantine dromon by Louie da fly - FINISHED - 1:50

[BANYAN]

Nice work Steven - unfortunately no matter how good the brush my hand shakes too much these days to do such fine artistry 

 

cheers

 

Pat

[yancovitch]

toothpicks could be a bit tedious...but then again, you're the master of tediousness 😁

[Louie da fly]

[cog]

Another option is to cut some hairs from another brush and glue those to yancovitch's toothpick

[MESSIS]

Steven magnificent idea.... ξυλόκαστρα με αγιογραφίες!  So far the painting is super, am.anxious to see the outcome...  definitely is going to look fantastic beautiful.  

[druxey]

You will experience frustration tying hairs to a toothpick, because you will never get the hairs to come to a good point (which a quality sable will) and the hairs will not have the correct 'spring', which sable does. Yes, the top quality brushes are not cheap, but with care will last decades. I have 20 year (or older) brushes still working well for me!

[cog]

druxey, that depends largely on the number of hairs, you will use, and the length, I was thinking in the line of two to three. Furthermore, my experience with enamels and saber ... not good for the long term, acrylics, I haven't used that long enough to be able to form my opinion

[Landrotten Highlander]

54 minutes ago, cog said:

druxey, that depends largely on the number of hairs, you will use, and the length, I was thinking in the line of two to three. Furthermore, my experience with enamels and saber ... not good for the long term, acrylics, I haven't used that long enough to be able to form my opinion

Not sure two hairs would work, as it is the capillary suction that 'pulls' the paint onto the brush and not much room for paint between two hairs only.  I have bought some brushes from a guy who makes them himself, and the smallest brush (measured in number of hairs) carries 13 hairs.  It comes in 3 lengths - short, middel and long - an allows me to paint a very thin line indeed.  The lengths of brush used depends a bit on what I am trying to paint: for intricate patterns and very small details I tend to use the short brush because of the control it gives me, while for patterns such as that found in tartan pattern I use the longest one as it allows me to control the run of the line much better.

 

I agree with the good quality brush being expensive but worth while, as long as proper care is taken.  When painting with acrylics (water based paints) I always leave my brushes resting on a shallow saucer with some water - the hairy end rests in the water and this means the brush is ready to load with paint whenever I want (only have to shake the excess water away), and when finished I wash out the brush in 3 stages: 1 in semi dirty water to get rid of most of the paint, then in a second pot of clean water  to get rid of the rest of the paint, then in a third pot of clean water to make sure there is no paint left.  I leave to dry by dabbing it against a kitchen towel (no rubbing the brush), then re-forming the tip and putting the brush in a fitting plastic tube with the point down to ensure that any water caught in the ferrule (the iron bit holding the hairs together) can drop away from it.

[Binho]

I’m loving the paint job, especially the designs on the xylocastra. Beautiful work!

[Nikiforos]

Stephen,

 

Do you usually use oils and/or enamel as (occasional) replacements for acrylic on larger structures, or are you perhaps one of these acrylic-only eccentrics? ♟️

 

Re-read your earlier posts. Good job! I loathe acrylic paint with a dedicated passion.  Have an internet gold star or two and a Polish flag. 🇵🇱

 

 

?

 

 

 

Edited October 21, 2019 by Nikiforos

[luponero]

it was a long time since I saw your work,
what to say, simply "stupendous"

Fabio (luponero)

[Louie da fly]

I've been working on the upper oarbenches - very tedious work - and I'm finally finished. It's a little bit previous, because I don't yet have a completed deck to put them on, but it's been my relief when I get tired (after about 5 minutes!) of doing the fiddly painted decoration on the castles. I can't put the deck on till the painting's finished, but it's at least something I can do in the meantime.

 

 

There are only two legs, at the inboard end of each bench. The outboard end has a tenon that fits into a mortise in the gunwale. Legs attached:

 

 

Just butt-glued together. I wasn't too careful about keeping the legs perpendicular to the bench, because I had a cunning plan to straighten everything at the next step:

 

   

The crosspieces made sure the legs weren't splayed apart, and I "broke" the bond between the legs and the bench as I glued the upper crosspiece on, so the final joint was square and straight. Not too shabby. Fairly pleased with it.

 

Now I have to finish off the fiddly painted decoration. I've got the finest brushes I can, but the faults lie more with my shaky hands than with the brush. There are still bits I'm not satisfied with, but I'll be tweaking the paintwork till I'm happy with it. More to come . . .

 

Steven

 

[cog]

When I look at the size of those benches, I would get the shakes merely thinking about your artwork on the castle, and am not surprised you'll need a brake from time to time. Do you rest your wrist, or the palm nearest your wrist on some object and just use your fingers to move the brush? A bit like the stick a painter uses to stabilize his hand when painting details

[Louie da fly]

51 minutes ago, cog said:

Do you rest your wrist, or the palm nearest your wrist on some object and just use your fingers to move the brush? A bit like the stick a painter uses to stabilize his hand when painting details

Yes, that's pretty much what I do.

 

Unfortunately my aspirations for the painting seem a little higher than my ability for precision. I'll do the best I can and tweak it till I get it as good as I'm able to, but I think there'll be  a point where I have to say "that's as good as I can do" and leave it at that.

 

Nikiforos, I'm quite happy with acrylic - I used it on the carved figures and had intended to do the same with the hull, but I've found acrylic over the top of PVA glue shows up marks that stand out like a dunny in the desert, so I had to use enamel instead. I used enamel on my Great Harry model way back in the day - Humbrol was available and acrylics certainly were not.

 

Unfortunately the rust red enamel I've used on most of the hull goes gluggy and won't give good coverage over other colours, so when fine line of white, or worse still, the dark blue on the "hearts" goes outside the line, it's difficult to touch it up. I've tried three different tins and they all have the same problem. It's rather annoying. Still, one can only do one's best.

 

Steven  

[druxey]

'Gluggy'. What a wonderfully descriptive word! I'm adding that to my vocabulary. Thank you, Steven!

[BANYAN]

Great progress Steven, eagerly waiting to see the finished paint work .

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Louie da fly]

Paintwork not finished yet, but coming along.

 

It's a bit frustrating because I really can't go ahead with anything else till I've finished the decorative painting. What I'd like to do is get on with finishing the upper deck and then add the upper benches which I've already made. But I can't do that yet because I've made angled marks below decks to get all the oars at the same angle and I have to be able to see down there to line them up.

 

And if I put the lower bank of oars in first they'll get in the way and make painting the hull and forecastle very difficult. So to finish the decking I have to (1) paint the hull and forecastle and (2) put the lower oars in.

 

So, here's current progress with the painting.

 

Xylokastra (side castles):

 

        Still some more tidying up to do on the decorative paintwork, but one relief is that I've realised that as they aren't yet in place I don't have to do it  till later if I don't want to.

 

Here is the pseudopation (forecastle):

 

  

Oh, and I've straightened out the wobbly white lines at the edges and for the blue lines I've done some masking - which I should have done before - to overcome much of the problem caused by my shaky hands. (Here's hoping it works!)

 

Steven

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 10, 2019 by Louie da fly

[yancovitch]

gads.....the detail....yer gonna make me wanna start building again.....sheesh!

[Baker]

Great work with the painting
And everything else also of course 👍👍

[Kikatinalong]

Great work Steven, me thinks you being a little hard on yourself regarding the detailed painting, from what I saw first hand the detail is amazing despite the shaky hand. Love the forecastle, I didn't get to c that. On another note it's good to see the cat be helpful in some way by supplying a tray 4 your beautifully made benches.

 

peter

[druxey]

Very nicely done, Steven. Have you tried using a bow pen for straight lines?

[cog]

Steven,

You are really the perfect example of being your own worst critic!

[BANYAN]

Very nice painting detail Steven; and welcome to the 'shaky hands' club  

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Louie da fly]

Thanks everybody for all the likes and the supportive comments. I'm sure the decoration on the full sized ship would have had minor faults and errors, but unfortunately at 1:50 scale they would be all but invisible and I would dearly like to emulate that. I'm fairly happy with it, but I think I can still do better with the geometric borders. We'll see. 

 

Druxey, I've used a bow pen in the past but with ink, not with enamel paint. And to be honest I've had my share of bow pen disasters, where all the ink suddenly decides to glob out onto the surface I'm so carefully trying to keep pristine. Also, I don't have a bow pen. The idea's interesting, though.

 

Kikatinalong, that's the only input the cat gets to have - all cats are banned from the boat room, though Louie (the one who supplied the tins) is very sneaky about following me into the room un-noticed and has to be roused out from his hiding place and removed. He did manage to get in once without being noticed at all, and spent quite a bit of time in there without causing any damage, but I don't trust any of the cats further than I could throw the Queen Mary II.

 

Steven

[Kikatinalong]

Steven, I do like cats, but I could never eat a whole one.😂😂

[druxey]

One has to experiment with the consistency and viscosity of paint when using a bow pen, but I've generally had good success. I used a fine 1000 grit wet and dry paper on the inside of the tips to make it less likely for a 'glob' to occur. Also, on the odd occasion I didn't like the result, it was easily mopped up with a cotton bud and a little solvent, allowed to dry and done over.

[MESSIS]

Well done Steven.... work of art.

 

Christos

[Louie da fly]

Thanks for the likes.

 

Druxey, that sounds worthwhile. I'm already committed on this build to the way I've started, but I'll be keeping it in mind for future builds.

 

Christos, many thanks.

 

Steven

[Louie da fly]

An update on the painting of the pseudopation:

Masking:

Masking taken off:

 

It does look better to the naked eye than on a close-up photo, but I'm still not totally happy with the precision of the decorated border. However,  I think I can improve on it before I finalise the whole thing, add the lower oars and close up the upper deck. 

[Robin Lous]

Fantastic!

Of course it looks better to the naked eye....close up and blown up photo's are depressing.

 

Robin