Soleil Royal by Hubac's Historian - Heller - An Extensive Modification and Partial Scratch-Build

[shipmodel]

Beautiful work Marc.  That's quite a set of 3-D jigsaw puzzles you have created for yourself.  I'm really enjoying watching how you solve them.

 

I agree with Michael.  Maybe an overcoat of clear gloss would  hide the blemish.  I would thin out the liquid so it will flow into your fingerprints a bit more.

Best of success.

 

Dan

[marktiedens]

Regarding the window blemish, a lot of plastic modelers use Future floor finish on clear parts to cover scratches & make them more transparent. Might be worth a try.  You could test it on a piece of extra acetate to see if it would work.

 

 

Mark

[Hubac's Historian]

Michael and Dan - thank you for the suggestions.  I’m going to order a bottle of this BSI release agent.  If it doesn’t work, I’ll experiment with your ideas.  In the end, the best thing may be to leave it alone.

 

Thanks for weighing-in guys!

[Hubac's Historian]

That is also an interesting idea, Mark.  Future Floor Finish sounds like something I could easily find at the hardware store.  Thanks for the tip!

[shipmodel]

Marc and Mark - 

 

In our area, at least, the Future line has been discontinued.  It is now known simply as Pledge Floor Care.  Same stuff, same bottle, different label.

 

Dan

[Hubac's Historian]

Good lookin’ out, Dan!

[yancovitch]

hubac, the illustrious mage, who manipulates the atoms to dance to his will, the colors and forms following along irresistibly drawn.....am keeping in touch....vc

 

Edited March 19, 2021 by yancovitch

[Hubac's Historian]

Nice to hear from you Vic!  I’m glad you are still here 😀

 

I’ve been slowly working through the problems of this one, small, critical piece.  I’ve reached the transition from the lower hull to the upper bulwarks.  The railing of the open walk is that transition line, and the forward terminus of that railing has some tricky navigation to plot, in order to avoid interference with the aft-most main deck gun.  Here is the problematic rendering by Berain:

 

 

What I drew, in my revision drawing, doesn’t exactly match the reality of my build, and so, it became necessary to design on the fly.  This turned out to be one of the more complicated parts to work out its shape; it has to extend far enough aft to clear the gunport, but still fay forward into the hull with something of a sweeping arc, so that the cap rail doesn’t return to the hull at an awkward right angle, while also not encroaching on the port opening.

 

Here is the basic shape that I arrived at, complete with compound angles:

 

 

The material for this part is the off-cut of the return just below. This was handy because the compound angle was already approximately sawn, and it only took a little sanding to fair the surfaces:

 

 

It occurred to me that I would be better served to not try and let this part into the wales.  Instead, I faired a styrene filler that keys-in between the wales.

 

The awkward bit is the weird triangular flat that you see just aft of the forward rounding.  I was highly skeptical about how this would resolve, on the model, but I knew that there had to be a smooth continuous surface, on which to mount the carving.

 

In the end, the carving draws your eye, and the remainder of the lower port enhancement partially overshadows this weird triangle:

 

 

Ultimately, I will probably blacken the interspace between the hull and the carving, in a little bit of theater carpentry, aka Trompe Loiel.  A brief montage that shows how all the parts fit together:

 

 

The gap between the block and the upper bulwarks will be filled by the caprail.  Next, I will complete the starboard side block, and then I can begin designing the railing upright, itself.  After I make the starboard block, though, It may make more sense to focus on editing the Four Seasons figures, so that I can mask their mounting places and bring the paint fully up to the gallery level.  I am reminded of SJSoane, right now, and the order of operations problems that he is currently dealing with on his magnificent Bellona.  I will say that I am really happy that I resisted the temptation to mount the beakhead bulkhead, way back when.  If I had done so, I would have had tremendous difficulty painting as I go.

 

Thanks for the likes, your comments and for stopping by!

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 19, 2021 by Hubac's Historian

[72Nova]

Brilliantly done Marc or should I say Michael Angelo!!. I assume you're using mostly fresh exacto blades or equivalent?. I struggled a bit figuring out how I was going to tackle Victory's figurehead and settled on sculpy modeling clay. Quite the master piece you have there.

Michael D.

[kirill4]

Marc,

Great job !!!

Looks fantastic ! 

Even unpainted it makes strong impression!

Good luck continue! 

[Chapman]

Another piece of art fits in like a cast.
Berain would be delighted!

[EJ_L]

Bravo Marc! I think one of the things I love the most about watching your log is not just the ship building but the lessons in critical thinking a strategic planning. You provide such an in-depth look at the how and why of each component, looking at them from both the form and function as well as the artistry. Through your rationalizations, I have found myself better understanding both model ship construction but also details of ship design and function that I really had not thought of as they are often completely ignored on most models. Example, the drains for the seats of ease in the Q.G.s.

 

There is a wealth of knowledge already here and to think, there is still a long way to go till completion!  

[druxey]

More and more impressive as the decoration is added piece by piece, Marc.

[Hubac's Historian]

Thank you all for your kind compliments and for continuing to support the project.  I know I spend a lot of time on the minutia, but that is where I find the greatest satisfaction and continued investment in the project.  It is gratifying that such a good number of you enjoy that level of detail.  I may only be guessing a lot of the time, EJ, but I try and do things that make practical sense.

 

One such example is interior support for the quarter gallery rail.  Although, I do not see specific reference to this in Lemineur’s monograph for the SP - or anywhere else, for that matter - it only seems sensible that such a light construction would have additional support.  So, that is what I have endeavored to do:

 

 

A wooden ship is full of knees, buttressing and distributing loads.  The channels have knees.  The deck railings have knees.  The stern and quarter galleries are particularly vulnerable to rough and battering seas, so I think this makes sense.

 

There is the added advantage, of course, of having additional glue surface for the railing upright, and these supports will help the part conform to the gentle contour of the gallery.

 

I received my BSI de-bonder.  The bottle says that the product mars most plastics; perhaps not acetate, though.  I will experiment.  I will also soon be painting again, so that I can install all of these walk parts.

 

All the best,

 

Marc

[Nek0]

Oh god that's beautiful !! No doubt your work will be an inspiration when I do the quarter galleries... I really admire what you did, congrats !!

 

[John Clements]

Great to catch up and see how you are getting with those quarter galleries which is so problematic and incorrect in the kit. I echo everyone else's appreciation of your attention to detail and historical probability, and the workmanship that lies behind it all. Being in the midst of my own struggles in this area, I can only say that one strives towards something satisfactory for one's own level of skill, whilst being lost in admiration for your craftmanship. Even though I am attempting something much less complicated and original, it is really useful seeing how you are approaching the problems and resolving them.

[Hubac's Historian]

Marc and John, thank you so much for your kind words.  And John, I am equally enjoying the work that you are doing with this fabulous Heller kit.  Your figurehead has me considering how I will color the other robed figures that inhabit my upper bulwarks.

 

It has been a bit of a hectic week, as I consider moving my family, yet again, in the never-ending quest for a reasonable three-bedroom apartment in NYC.

 

Slowly, I have been assembling the QG open walk and painting the stern.  It is fiendishly difficult to get into the recesses of this stern window plate, and I really wish I had painted it off of the model.  Slowly, though, we are getting there:

 

I’ve masked with blue tape, the footprints of the Four Seasons figures.  I also decided to extract as much recyclable detail from the two extra stern plates that members of this community have so generously donated.

 

On the forward end of the open walk, I thought that block could do with a little finishing, so I extracted the paneling detail from that same corresponding area on the stern-plate, turned it sideways, and now that looks a little nicer.

 

The bombastic form of this block, which I may or may not be interpreting correctly, is very curious to me:

 

I wonder how such a thing would actually have been made on the real ship.  would they have sheathed a light framework with thin deal planks, or would they have shaped a solid balk of lightweight timber, much like I have for the model?

 

The other interesting discovery, this past week, was Ronald Portanier’s dissertation on the evolution of French marine sculpture throughout the Ancien Regime.  He has a number of interesting insights into decorative styles, color and the use of Trompe L’oeil.  It is quite lengthy, but well worth the look.

 

There are a few gems in the Appendices, also, including a super detailed port quarter view  of the Monarque/RL’s stern - something I was just asking Chapman about, recently.  There is also a fascinating unfinished rough sketch for the stern of an early First Marine, first-rate ship.  If that weren’t enough, there are also several insightful LeBrun portraits that give a good sense for the colors that might be used to accentuate the ship’s carved figures.  Check the link below for a look-see:

 

https://spectrum.library.concordia.ca/984742/1/Portanier_PhD_S2019.pdf

 

As a side note, the BSI debonder does an excellent job of sloughing away the finished surface of acetate.  I think I will just live with the blemish.  It is small.

Edited April 5, 2021 by Hubac's Historian

[kirill4]

Good day Marc,

Always watch Your works with great interest!!!

Bravo!!!

Wish You all the Best! and steady progress in Your SR construction...

and Thanks for the book!

Kirill

[John Clements]

Hi Marc.

Those blocks give a much better joint with the hull than the Heller offering and a better shape to the whole structure. My own guess about how it was built would be for the planking option, which would be lighter and simpler, I think, and would match the rest of the construction. I'm not sure where they would have sourced a piece of lightweight timber of such a size.

The book sounds very interesting and right up my street as a Baroque enthusiast. I'll be having a look this weekend.

This coming Monday shops are open again so I'll be able to pop down to my local art shop and buy all those bits and pieces I couldn't be bothered to order on-line.

[Hubac's Historian]

If it were solid timber, John, they could conceivably laminate several pieces of spruce, for example, as would be done for the figurehead.  That assembly could then key into the wales, just as I made for the model, and then be through-bolted into the hull framing, so that the quarter gallery structure, itself, weren’t carrying the weight. This approach would allow complete freedom of form.  Maybe though, as you suggest John, it was all light framing and thin plank.  I have no idea, really.

 

Painting of the stern continues at a snail’s pace.  It is all crisply done, though, so the time is well spent.

 

I’ve been making the port and starboard gallery bulwark lattices.  My technique has improved since the making of the trailboard, so I am no longer breaking these delicate lattice pieces as I go.

 

Rather than mostly trying to file these delicate pieces into shape - which fatigues the plastic in the narrowest sections of the design - I have learned to pare to my lines with a razor sharpe no. 11 blade.  I’ve also learned my lesson about how to scribe part blanks for the bulwarks around an angled, curving surface:

The trick to this sort of multi-level relief is to use styrene sheet of varying thickness.  The bulwark uprights are cut from .030 sheet, while the lattice relief is .020.

From the stock middle balcony rail, I extracted the ship name plate

I will have to offer the bulwark blank up to its place on the QG, so that I can mark out the exact pilaster locations from the level below.  Then, I can glue the lattice to the bulwark, and secure the pilasters and the diamond lattice detail.  The pilasters will be cut from .030 sheet, and will sit just a little proud of the lattice, thus creating the desired depth effect.

I made rubber moulds of the nameplate, so that I could duplicate it and have the name on both the stern and quarters.

There is a significant investment in time just to get to this:

I will also surface mount smaller resin scroll ornaments around the name plates, as well as diamond flower ornaments to the lattice.

 

In other musings, I have been in contact with Mr. Portanier.  He has been helpful in sharing several of his sources.  Among those were several key articles from the French nautical journal Neptunia, published by Les Amis Des Musees de la Marine.

 

In a separate posting, site members directed me to the following resources for finding back issues:

 

https://www.aamm.fr/neptunia/recherche_articles

 

The above links to an index of every issue and article that Neptunia has ever published.  The index spans 75 years and over 300 issues.  I am indebted to all of you who have been so helpful to me and this project.

 

A listing of issues in print that are available for sale can be found here:

 

https://boutique.aamm.fr/neptunia

 

In going through the index, I discovered around 25 articles that are specific to my time period and/or subject.  A number of  additional articles, based on the abstract description, seem like they may he helpful.  For 5 euros, per older issue, that seems well worth the gamble.

 

A number of issues that I would really like to have, like a multi-part series by Bernard Frolich on the development of his model of L’Ambiteaux, are currently unavailable in print.  Courtesy of Mr. Francis Graviou, I can contact the site administrator to see about obtaining those issues digitally, perhaps:

 

contact@aamm.fr

 

I think, perhaps, the greatest value of a substantial piece of research, like Mr. Portanier’s dissertation, is where else it may lead you to keep searching for answers.  His cited works are extensive, and I can assure you that there is often great value in the reading of footnotes.

 

I may never find the portrait of my gilded ghost ship:

 

But I do, now, know where to look for the following:

 

 

Now, I merely need to figure out how to contact the national archives and obtain a copy of these documents.

 

I am not expecting the expansive detail that Hyatt provides in his description of the RL, but it would be reasonable to expect to glean some key information about Soleil Royal’s original structure and appearance.  That could go a long way toward fleshing out a portrait of her appearance between the years 1670 and 1685.

 

I also stumbled across this:

From a time when the lead architects like Laurent Hubac were being continually nudged by Colbert’s administration to conform to a codified prescription of dimensions, this I would say, is a pretty good insight into the design modality of, perhaps, the most intractable of the arsenal shipwrights.  Laurent Hubac liked a broad-beamed ship, and that is exactly what this drawing indicates.

 

Also, if one makes a very close examination of the starboard side of this drawing, they will discover a series of regularly spaced hash marks.  This drawing is of the broadest, lower main battery deck.  I believe that these hash marks represent port piercings.  There are 15 broadside hashmarks, with what appears to be one more “hunting” port hash mark, near the hawse entry.  In other words, something very like this closeup of La Reine’s port bow:

 

photo, courtesy of Chapman

 

There were only two Hubac-built ships, that I know off, that were pierced for 16; La Reine and Soleil Royal.  Very interesting, indeed!

 

As always, stay well, and more is to follow...

Edited April 14, 2021 by Hubac's Historian

[yancovitch]

don't know how you do it......even tiny work like that is exhausting...wonder how many hours you spend a day on it.......and all that research...sheesh...

[Hubac's Historian]

Hey Vic!  The old adage about loving your work making it feel less like work, definitely applies, here.  I am fortunate to have significant chunks of time to home-in and focus, but even incremental progress in the smaller 15-30 minute windows adds up.  The truth is, though, that it is hard to sit and work at something like those lattices for much longer than an hour, without a break.  I’m driven forward by the gradual materialization of something that I could see quite clearly in my imagination. 

[Ab Hoving]

Impressive! Really well done and good research.

Hat off.

Ab

[Hubac's Historian]

Thank you, Ab!

[Hubac's Historian]

Painting continues.  Although the following pics don’t reflect it, all the yellow ocher is done and the walnut ink distress wash has been applied.  I’ve begun the gilt work, and am making my way around the gallery.

 

The purpose of these photos is to illustrate the middle balcony tier, supporting corbels. The middle three are stock kit parts.  The outer two were scratch-made because even the secondary kit corbels that are more shallow, in depth, still extended beyond my balcony edge; I had made a conscious decision to reduce the depth of my middle balcony because I knew there were limits to how far I could stretch the Four Seasons figures - more on them, in a moment.

 

Among the myriad tiny considerations is the fact that the corbels must align with the tilting angle towards the centerline, as delineated by the pilasters, but they must also account for the secondary angle introduced by the round-up.  These were very fiddly to fit.

 

As is my practice, I had masked-off strips on the underside of the balcony to ensure a welded styrene bond.  Naturally, this necessitated a certain amount of re-touching to the yellow.  The Vallejo paint I’m using is not model-specific, but from their artist’s line, instead.  It thins beautifully, but requires numerous passes to achieve good color saturation with a brush.  The paint also remains rather soft for a number of weeks after application.  For my tastes, these are worthwhile trade-offs for the ease of application and a smooth painted surface.

 

The middle gallery side bulwarks are rounding into form.  I made and fit the pilaster pieces, and carved the port side lattice:

Not surprisingly these pieces became significantly more stiff when I CA-glued the resin name badges.  I will have to heat-form these, before painting and installation, with a hairdryer so that they take the curve of the gallery without introducing stress.

 

As I did for the upper bulwark frieze, I cut hard shoulders and shallow reliefs to suggest an intertwining of the frieze banding:

This may seem hard, but it really is not and can be accomplished with nothing more than a #11 blade to cut the shoulders, and a narrow, curved blade to sneak in and cut the reliefs.

 

I was going to add resin scrolls around the name plate, but the flexibility issue, together with the fact that I’d have to relieve these resin scrolls too far into the nameplates, changed my course; I decided, instead, to simply model and define the scroll shapes surrounding the nameplates.  I still have yet to add the diamond flower ornaments to the Xs on either side of the nameplates.

 

By far, the most enjoyable phases of this project are those times when I discover an opportunity to re-incorporate stock parts of the kit to my new architecture.  Adding the bow extension pieces was the first formidable challenge of this kind.  The Four Seasons figures present a similarly challenging attempt at plastic surgery.

 

Tanneron most likely drew inspiration from this later drawing of what I believe is SR1693:

As such, there is a projecting lower stern balcony, and the Four Seasons figures have a more upright posture, in supporting the balcony above.  The Heller kit reflects this same architecture.

 

In closing-in this lower stern balcony, I have also brought it in, closer to the stern.  Consequently, if I want to use the stock figures, I realized I would have to alter their posture and lengthen them.  Starting with the outer two male figures of Winter and Autumn, where the overhang is less extreme, this is what I have done:

The magic entry for cutting these figures is through the back, just above the elbow, and stopping the cut before breaking through just above the hand.  This weird gold plastic is more brittle than the black stuff, and I snapped the first figure, Winter, just above the hand.  This was not a problem, though.

 

I then took a piece of 1/16” styrene strip, double-stuck it to the edge of a piece of scrapwood, and then filed a taper ranging from the thickness of the kerf (about a 1/32”) to the full 1/16”, at back.

 

I am always emboldened, in these surgeries, when I have a fall-back set of parts.  The difference in posture is slight, but it is just enough to help these side figures conform:

I then added a piece of 1/16” styrene to the bottom, so that I can simultaneously increase the height of the figures, as necessary, to meet the underside of the balcony, while simultaneously adjusting the outboard angle.  Here is how these two outboard figures took shape:

It may seem difficult, but modeling the new plastic to appear like a seamless continuation of the clothed figures really isn’t that hard:

The road map of where you need to cut in and continue lines is already there for you.  Also, draping clothing is fairly forgiving:

Autumn (right) really made out well, in the deal, with some additional bicep definition!  It makes me wonder how well my own living body might respond to a little styrene enhancement.  I haven’t been to the gym much, lately.

 

That is all well and good for the outer figures.  I will still need to add another 1/32” at bottom, and fettle the top joint to the balcony, but I should be able to fit these without much trouble.

 

The middle figures required a little more extreme hunching of their posture, because the balcony above steps out, away from the stern, by about an additional 1/16”.  It seemed reasonable to laminate two different thicknesses of styrene strip (1/16”&1/32”), for my torso wedge.  Here is how that is taking shape:

As can be seen next to the Autumn figure, now the arching of the female backs is notably more pronounced.  I will probably need to add some extra plastic to the top edge of the bouquet and model it so that it appears to cope neatly around the bottom moulded edge of the balcony above.  All of this may seem like a lot of fiddling about with these figures, but I can assure you that the investment in time is far less than making them from scratch.  Besides, Heller did too nice a job of modeling them to believe I could do any better on my own.

 

So, that’s where things stand as of today.  In the coming weeks, I will likely have to take a break from Soleil Royal, as my wife and I have made the difficult decision to move, yet again.  We barely got to know Brooklyn, and certainly the Pandemic robbed our neighborhood of much of its charm.  Nevertheless, an “affordable” 3-bedroom apartment is a unicorn worth chasing.  I will periodically still post updates as small work progresses.

 

As always, stay well, and thank you for stopping by.  

Edited April 23, 2021 by Hubac's Historian

[druxey]

Good luck finding a new home. We'll await your return! 

 

Nice modification to those figures. It's hard to realize how small  they really are.

[Hubac's Historian]

Lease signing happens this weekend - virtually -  so that will be interesting.

 

And yes, while the model overall is quite large, some of the component parts are pretty tiny.  Somewhere, Lloyd McCaffery is laughing at me; “you call that small?!”

[John Clements]

You've made a great job on those figures, making a great success where I quailed at the thought of what needed doing and, as you've seen, ended up with them supporting the brackets rather than the actual balcony. They are amongst the smallest parts in the kit, bar the blocks and pulleys, and nicely moulded so very much worth keeping.

[Hubac's Historian]

Thank you, John!

 

Short update; two fitted and two to go:

This has been a little bit of a guessing game.  I had to add significantly more new plastic to the bases of the two middle figures (Spring and Summer) because of the more pronounced arching back posture that the extra overhang of the balcony necessitated; I literally had to stretch these figures to their max.

 

Some careful filing of the base angles aligned the figures with the inboard pitch of the window pilasters.  After establishing the base angle/joint, it was necessary to add back some plastic to the top mounting surfaces, in order to make a good plastic to plastic bond.  I promise that painting of these figures will be interesting, and I will be taking cues from this portrait:

As is intrinsic to this kind of reverse-engineering kit-bash, it is impossible to truly capture the original; the figures obscure more of the windows than I would like, but this is an acceptable compromise.

 

I always appreciate your support, your likes, kind compliments, and even your criticisms.  Enjoy the weekend!

Edited May 1, 2021 by Hubac's Historian

[72Nova]

Very impressive work to say the least👍.

Michael D.