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

[EJ_L]

At least around here when you go crazy you have some great company!

[Hubac's Historian]

Thank you, EJ, Dan and Cedric for your thoughtful and well-reasoned responses to the problem at hand.  I have to say that I am leaning toward correcting that particular flaw because I think it will bother me, down the road, especially since I will have made a mold to cast the port enhancements.  Two molds, actually, because the lower enhancement is mounted separately to the wales.  If I'm going to go to that degree of trouble, I might as well make these ports all they can be.

 

Speaking to your last post, EJ, I do have a pretty good idea about where I will draw the line, but it is a slippery slope, man!  The thing about this build is that 98% of what I'm proposing, I've never actually attempted before.  Prior to this, all of my model making has been strictly by the numbers, as seen on the box.  With this build, though, I'll be learning to make moulds for resin castings, how to do a realistic, weathered paint job, how to do a realistic waterline model in a gel sea, how to build up ornament with a variety of media, including styrene sheet and extrusions, wire, polymer clay and anything else I dig up that I think will produce a good scale effect.

 

The whole thing about making bow and stern extension castings of the existing hull parts so that I can make the ship wider and longer may all just add up to a spectacular fail.  I think it will work though.  I expect to make a few castings that I have to throw away.  But, ultimately, I think I will find a way to make it work and produce a good result.

 

It is my experience with designing and making Art Nouveau furniture that has given me confidence and emboldened me to play with ideas, even when the techniques involved are, initially, beyond my skill set.

 

Following are a pair of door pulls I made for a small wall cupboard, a few years ago.  They are direct copies of a well-known pattern by the Danish silversmith Georg Jensen.  My father owns a pair of cuff links in this pattern, and I realized one day, when I couldn't find pull hardware that fit the style and ornamental theme of the cabinet, that this Jensen pattern was perfect for adapting to a recessed pull:

 

 

This was the first of two pulls.  It measures about 2 1/2" in diameter, and is carved from bubinga.  When I carved this first one, I was stationed for two weeks on our "emergency truck".  Driving between jobs, through the somewhat paved streets of our outer boroughs, and sitting in the passenger seat of a bouncy old cargo van - I carved this first pull using a small assortment of knives and a few gouges, with the work double-stuck to a square of masonite.  That was nothing more than white-knuckle determination and patience.  Afterwards, I felt that if I could do that, I could probably do anything I set my mind to.

 

the following cornice frieze, for the same cabinet, was carved on a table in my home and it seemed to take FOREVER.  But I was committed to the process, and managed a layered relief in what is only a shy 3/33":

 

This project with SR is right in line wih the cabinet or any of the other ornamental things I've made.  Once I have a clear enough idea that I can draw something, I have confidence that I can make it happen.  Eventually, and through trial and error.

 

For me, the process of making something has become almost as exciting as the result.  Almost every night I try to do something.  Last night, I watched a video of Doris applying medium density cyano to a small sheet of acetate for her Royal Caroline lanterns.  She had such an ingenious method and technique for applying the glue exactly where needed, without making any mess at all.

 

The night before, I was drawing in these small mouldings for the cap rail stiles, which I sometimes see on the Arsenal models; the effect is of a framed, recessed panel of ebony, on each protruding rail frame, just beneath the rail itself.  It's a dynomite looking detail, but for me it also serves the purpose of visually shortening these rail timbers, which I think the Heller kit has moulded out of scale.  They are too tall.

 

Small steps.  Incremental progress, eventually adding up to a thing.  I spent almost 2 years on that cabinet.  I expect to spend anywhere from 3-5, actually building this SR.  It's all process, for me, baby!

[Hubac's Historian]

To answer the question, though, I stop at the point where I am required to scrap the lower hull or the upper bulwarks.   I'm just not set up, at home to create a hull form, and not having to do so is still an enormous time saver for me.  most of the other structural elements will he made from scratch, but I will always look to recycle what I can.

 

I have been playing with ideas to re-use the kit stern windows and add the missing sixth window I need, for example, by simply resin-casting an extra stern plate - once I've figured out this whole casting process.  I suspect that the existing camber of the five windows can simply be supplemented by an extra casting of the middle (5th window) on the stock plate.  A simple test with a photocopier will tell me whether or not this is feasible.  It would be a shame not to use these beautifully cast windows that Heller did such a nice job of detailing.  I would have to heat-bend my window banks to accomodate the new round-up of the stern, but I think it is doable.

 

What will be fun, for me, is watching the evolution of Cedric's build for La Reyne because he is proposing to take his project to places where I fear to tread.  I think his will be the ultimate SR kit-bash of all-time, and having him here, simultaneously, is an enormous motivator for me.

[Hubac's Historian]

2 hours ago, EJ_L said:

At least around here when you go crazy you have some great company!

And, yes, I think we're all a little nuts.  But I'd check myself into this asylum any day!

[Nek0]

Hello Marc,

I discovered your work a few days ago and I'm happy there is another crazy fellow who gets interested in the Soleil Royal !  I'm Neko, from France, and my first name is... Marc ! 

At first, let me congratulate you for the hard work and dedication you put in this project, and I quite know what I'm talking about. I totally agree with you, the process of making something by your own brain and hands is almost as exciting as the result. 

Obviously, you're not discouraged by the huge amount of work that awaits you, and that's a good point. First of all, if you want to turn the Heller kit, wich represents the Tanneron version, into a Berain version, it will not be that simple. The question is: do you want your model to be as close as possible to a Berain version, and historically accurate as much as possible, or would you accept a mixed version, knowing that the Tanneron model is historically wrong on many aspects ? 

Your drawings are already quite good, but if you're involved in the first solution, I may suggest you a few modifications. Before the settlement of july 4 1670, a first rate three deck ship of the line should look like this:

 

(image n°1)

 

This is what you can observe in the side view of the Berain drawing. 

The Soleil Royal should have 110 guns. The first deck has 16 gunports, (the first one "hunting gunport" is unarmed), the 2d and 3rd decks have 15 armed gunports. The forecastle and rear castle have 16 guns, the poop deck has 4 guns. Only the Soleil Royal and the Royal Louis have an armed poop deck. 

The gunports of the third deck absolutely have their lateral sides vertical, due to the frame of the ship. The bellow and the top sides are parrallel to the decks. BUT, according to the period drawings, on both side views (bow and stern) these gunports are round. Maybe you could find a way to make them round, it may even be simplier than correcting the square ones. Concerning the rear castle, maybe you should delete the first gunport on your drawing, and add two at the stern ? Then you would have a total of five guns on each side, plus the three on each side of the forecastle = 16 guns and you're correct. The gunports of the poop deck should have the same shape, square, or octogonal. I allowed myself to make a few other minor suggestions on your original drawing. 

 

(image n°2)

 

I know that is a lot of work, and one could quickly get discouraged, but the Soleil Royal deserves it. Given that you want to modify the whole stern and the water line (huge work...) why not mod also the bulkwark to make an even more accurate version ? 

I wish you good luck, I will keep an eye on your build and will try to provide some help if I can. Note that I can understand English, and I can barely try to write it without using google translate... But I'm not fluent and I do mistakes... Also, if some sentences seem rude, I'm sorry it is not my intent. Just some difficulties with a language I'm not completely comfortable with.   Anyway, I just wanted to make a few suggestions and share the knowledge I have acquired on this ship, and I support your efforts whenever you follow them or not.  

Best regards,

Marc

[Hubac's Historian]

Hello Marc!,

 

Maybe it was just a matter of time because the truly crazy SR fanatics seem to have a way of finding each other!

 

First things first; please make no apologies for any translation errors.  I trust Google Translate to express my thoughts quite completely on the LaRoyal Modelisme site, and in my correspondences with Michel and other French speakers, but I know that the nuances of whatever I am trying to say are not quite coming across.  But that's okay.  Eventually, we work it out.  As for your English, you are expressing yourself beautifully, so there are no worries there.

 

I am very honored that you have come to visit my build page.  As a matter of fact, it was the Albert Brenet painting of the Battle of Beveziers that you use as your avatar, which caught my eye earlier last year and was, perhaps, the single biggest epiphany for me; though it is a 20th century painting, I felt the artist correctly interpreted so much about the relationship of the stern to the quarter galleries, the boutielles.  I often talk about your model for it's superb execution, and my Pinterest page (under the "French Vaisseaux" tab) has quite a number of pictures of your Soleil Royal, which I have captioned in reference to your work.  Your hull is so clean and elegant and your carving skills are certainly up to the task.  Your construction method for building up the "Royal Balsa" is one that I very much admire. 

 

For a number of years now, I have been quietly watching both your and Michel's respective builds, and am fascinated by the differing choices you each have made, while using essentially the same hull form.  Michel's model is a staggering work of thorough attention to detail, and I believe that his choice of ornamentation can not fail to deliver a harmonious composition of great beauty.  It is the direction that you have chosen, though, that more closely aligns with my conception of the Berain/Compardel renderings of the ship.  I have my idea about how the middle deck stern gallery will resolve itself into the middle deck quarter gallery, but I am watching eagerly to see what you have in mind, there.

 

To answer your question, Marc, I view this build as an opportunity to test out the larger concepts of my idea about the ship.  As I have said elsewhere, in this build log, I actively seek as much truth as I can from the true scholars like Michel, Mr. Lemineur, Mr. Delacroix and yourself because I will channel all of that into a full scratch-build some day.  In the meantime, I can be persuaded on various details to go the extra mile.  That is the case with this recent discussion of the main deck ports.  I can fix that, and I will because as you point out, it only makes sense for the port frames to align with the ship's frames.

 

Now, you raise an interesting subject of essentially reversing the shape of the quarter deck gun ports, the round ports, with the arched deck ports of the main deck.  Visually, this is a striking departure between what is shown in the Berain drawing and what I have proposed, thus far.  In all honesty, this is one of those issues that I would prefer to tackle in the full-scratch model of SR.  On the other hand, though, I may yet convert the top-most round port of the poop to an octagonal port that matches the one that I have sketched in.

 

I don't think, though, that I will raise the sheer line, itself, as you have sketched in.  For this build, something like that would tip the scales toward abandoning the plastic model altogether and just drawing as thoroughly accurate a set of plans as I can for the scratch-build.  On the other hand, the possibility of modifying the quarter deck armament so that there are five ports, instead of four, is something that I will definitely have to think about.

 

So, you see Marc, that I will be producing a hybrid of sorts.  The true Arsenal modelers will see it, and no matter how well it is crafted, they will see the inherent flaws in it.  And that is good and well, really, because it sparks conversation about this puzzle of a ship that we are all grappling with.  On another build log for a French 74 (based largely on Boudriot's work), I was reading the other day a discussion about the joining and shaping of the futtock floor timbers to the keel.  Mr. Delacroix was making a point about the fact that the renderings actually reflected a much earlier shaping that is more consistent with the seventeenth than the eighteenth century.  Now, if not for the expansive knowledge of people like Mr. Delecroix, how else would the average modeler understand the nuances of what they are looking at in their own research?  I make a point though, of being clear that this model I am making is quite flawed and not to be taken as a definitive statement about period practice, but more an impressionist and artistic interpretation that makes reasonable connections to known practice.  It is, in other words, an educated guess.

 

If you haven't done already, I hope you will also acquaint yourself with Cedric's conversion of the Heller kit into La Reyne.  His build can be found here on MSW, as well as on the La Royal site.  The work he is doing to re-configure the armament and the sheer of the gun decks, themselves, is truly fascinating.

 

I have read through large portions of your second build log and have learned quite a bit from the lively discussion on your site.  You can be sure that I will continue to follow your progress with great interest, and I look forward to whatever else you have to say on the subject.

 

Regards,

 

Marc

[Hubac's Historian]

So, with the frieze more or less worked out, I decided to focus on tracing in the quarter galleries.  As you know, I already had a partial tracing layer that was my hand-drawing onto a scale area plan of the ship.  The more I studied what I had drawn, however, I realized that the quarter gallery levels were nowhere in correspondence with the stern balconies and windows.  On the main deck level, in particular, where I intend for the stern balcony to wrap to an open walk on the quarters - there were serious alignment issues.

 

In the time since I did that hand drawing though, two things have happened.  I located a really high-resolution image of the Berain black and white drawing, and I have learned to use GIMP's scaling and rotation tools to better align layers and path objects.  My first approach was to import the image, and cut the QG out with GIMP's scissor tool, with smart edge recognition.  The tool's ability to find an edge depends upon the degree of contrast, and despite what seem to be pretty clear lines, the tool still did a poor job of finding the true edge of the QG.

 

Next, I simply rotated and scaled the Berain drawing so that it corresponded very nearly exactly with the space that I had made available.  First, I scaled while maintaining the aspect ratio, but then I scaled the height and width separately until the levels of the QG corresponded almost exactly with the levels that I had established for my stern template.  There are three pairs of ruler guide lines that correspond with the upper and lower edges of each stern balcony.  They are close enough, now, that I can later draw the stern to exactly correspond with what I trace for the QG, and I think I will still be able to recycle the kit's stern windows from the existing plate.

 

This solves a number of perspective problems for me.  My hand drawing of Africa and the quarter piece supporting the side stern lantern was decent, but my tracings will be much improved by using the original drawing as a tracing layer and then scaling the height and width of the quarter piece to drop far enough below the sheer rail, so that I can draw in the mount for the side stern lantern.

 

This also means that I can abandon the "filler" ornaments and mouldings that I had previously drawn in, above and below the middle deck QG windows.  The other revelation was that I probably wouldn't have to move the lower deck, aft-most port, 1/4" forward; I could probably get away with only an 1/8" adjustment.

 

Visible now is a second octagonal port that I am experimenting with.  Whenever I figure out how to unlock the path groupings that I made for each gunport type, I will then straighten the main deck ports so that they are vertical, and perhaps eliminate the round port on the poop deck.

[shipmodel]

Hi Marc - 

 

Those plans are getting better all the time.  Tracing the Berain drawing is a good idea, but the sheer looks to be exaggerated, especially at the upper rail.  Maybe the artist did this as an attempt to show perspective, because there seems to be a progressive tilt from deck to deck.  If so, maybe your GIMP program has a "free transform" or similar function that would allow you to pull down just that corner to make it match your space a bit closer.

 

Also, I just ran across this discussion of the Heller SR kit when I went to renew my subscription to FineScale Modeler.  Don't know if you have seen it.

 

  http://cs.finescale.com/fsm/modeling_subjects/f/7/t/68138.aspx   

 

The discussion ran from 2006 to 2011 and was dominated by Dr. John Tilley, professor at East Carolina University and former curator at the Mariner's Museum.  He hated the kit, though he built one.  Lots of links in the discussion to some pretty well built examples. Judging from those, it can be turned into a very nice looking model.  But the effort to do so is tremendous.  One link I read said that it had taken the builder 14 years to finish, mostly in research and correcting kit problems.  Whew!  I don't have that kind of dedication.

 

With all the research and work you are putting in, yours has all the makings of being one of the best, despite any non-correctable kit issues.  

 

Dan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

  

[Hubac's Historian]

Thank you, Dan!  Yes, with this Berain tracing layer, in place, the full parameters of my proposed model are now in place.

 

I realized, after posting, that I probably should have used GIMP's eraser tool to eliminate the Berain sheer cap because it is so exagerated, and its presence muddles my intent.  The only aspects of this drawing that I will incorporate into my own are the quarter gallery, the quarter piece, Africa, and the caryatid figure supportig her.

 

What's interesting to me about the sheer line, as it is represented in Berain's drawing, is that to some degree it must represent the more pronounced sheer line that would have been a feature of ships of the First Marine.  However, I do not think it is an accurate representation of what the first SR's sheer line would have looked like.

 

Consider first, that I had to rotate the drawing, significantly, in order for the sheer of the  QG to align with the kit's degree of sheer - which is much less pronounced.  Having done that, the Berain sheer still rises at a steep angle from my own!

 

The second issue with the Berain drawing that I do not think can be taken too literally is the fact that the Berain sheer is shown to be very straight and stiff looking, when in actual practice almost every battle ship sheer line, up to and including the IOWA class, is a fair curve.  

 

In reality, SR1's sheer line was almost certainly more pronounced than shown in the Heller kit, but probably not radically so, ala the Vasa.  The truth, I think, lies somewhere between what I feel must be a VDV quality portrait of the Monarch of 1668 (which I have posted many times), and the VDV portraits of La Reyne, where the wale strakes are shown to rise more steeply.

 

It is my belief that Berain, Puget and other designers of ship ornamentation applied what were intended to be, variously accurate representations of the ship's decor (Berain more so than Puget) to a sort of boiler plate template of a ship's side - which I don't think was ever intended to be taken too literally as an accurate presentation of naval architecture; the perspective of the hull in these drawings always seems approximate and flawed to me.

 

 

[Hubac's Historian]

I have also read through that FineScale build log.  It has to be said, though, that it could have been many pages shorter if certain participants in that discussion could have restrained themselves from reminding everyone just how aweful they found the kit to be.  To be fair, I am sure some feel MY log could be many pages shorter, if I'd just get busy building something!

 

There certainly was a lot of usefull information there, though.  Hopefully, I can push that conversation forward a little, with this model.

[EJ_L]

Dan has voiced a question that has started to bug me in the accuracy of the overall shapes of the ships being painted. When we have ships that the known information is largely based on artistic renderings from hundreds of years ago, how much reliability can we give to the those artists when it comes to proportion? It is not uncommon for artists to exaggerate an objects shape in order to make it "pop" on canvas or allow room for details. Even more detailed and accuracy oriented artists who were truly attempting to reproduce the object they were painting may exaggerate a line in order to allow it to fit especially when translating a 3 dimensional object to a 2 dimensional drawing. It is almost the opposite problem that model builders have in translating 2D drawings into a 3D model. There is always something lost in translation.

 

Now take into consideration the time period. This was long before high definition pictures, lasers, 3D scans or even binoculars as we know them today to provide a clear up close image or measurements. Most artistic paintings were done from the shore at a distance or even after the fact based on people's accounts of the action/object. Just these facts begin to raise the question of reliability. Not to discredit Berain's, or anyone else for that matter, drawings as they are excellently done and I am relying on them immensely myself. I think some lee way must be given that they are not proportionally accurate. This is both a blessing and a curse. The blessing is that it gives us more freedom to model the ship as we feel it may have looked, within reason. The curse is we do not know what the historically accurate ship would look like. 

 

 

[EJ_L]

Marc,

 

Your build log is a great reference tool for anyone looking for serious, in depth research and information of this great ship. Yes, it is not really a "build" log yet as you have not really built anything but, it is full of relevant information that will benefit anyone looking to scratch build and/or expand their knowledge of this ship. The building part will come soon enough!

[Hubac's Historian]

EJ, you make some excellent points about 17th C. Marine portraiture.  For all of the reasons you mention, for me, the gold standard remains the Van de Velde family for their accuracy.

 

Given that the elder VDV was painting and drawing grisailles as early as the 1650s, and perhaps earlier, there is a strong apparent correlation between his drawings and what was discovered through the restoration of the Vasa.  He was not exaggerating anything, it seems.

 

their success, as marine chronicalers, has to do with the numerous detailed studies of ships they made, at their moorings, as well as their penchant for recording the composition of a sea battle as it was happening.  The father and sons would be aboard a small, nimble craft, on the periphery of the engagement roughing in the principal ships, in their respective lines of battle.  This was the 17th centry corrolary to the war-time photographer.

 

So, in thinking about what a mid-to-late 17th C. Ship should look like, one really can't go wrong using them as the basis for their research, and that is what I am doing with this project.  While there is no coherent portrait of SR1, I can draw conclusions about mid-seventeenth century French practice through the VDV drawings of SR's contemporaries.  I can't say definitely, whether such and such detail was a feature of the ship, but I can in the parlance of the courts, argue that there exists a 'preponderance of evidence' to suggest that such a detail would be present on a first-rate of this period.

 

Other good contemporary marine artists to look at include Peter Monamy, Ludolf Bakhuizen, Adrien Van Diest, and Abraham Storck, among others.

 

But much useful detail can be gained from artist's compositions that lack proper ship perspective.  For example, Cedric is using, in part, a detsiled sketch of La Reyne's stern by Mr. Desclouszeaux in order to give shape to the fuzzy ornamental details of the VDV drawings that are really the basis of his build.

 

I am always torn because, really, I have enough layout information to really make a start of it right now.  The only thing I really need to still work out is the mast sizes, steps, top sizes, channel and shroud locations.  However, time spend building is time taken away from drawing, and I have already learned, with the help of you guys, that certain details of my design really should be re-worked.  I am really appreciative for those contributions.

 

As my first woodworking mentor, David Morton, often used to say:  in making something, anything, the first goal in planning is to avoid what he referred to as "negative pre-determinants."  In other words, don't do something early that locks you in, or makes it difficult or even impossible to do something you would prefer to do later.  Understand your project fully.  Plan it's fabrication according to all the steps involved.  Check your plans over and again.  Most importantly - remain engaged throughout the long arduous process of making something that is worthwhile.

[EJ_L]

That is good advice indeed!

 

Thanks to for the names of those artists. I will have to take a look at their work.

[Hubac's Historian]

Monamy is one who has done a pair of perspective portraits of SR, just as the fireship is closing in at La Hogue.   In one portrait, you can see the stern quarters.  In the other, you can see the bow.  I bought a print of the stern quarters painting that is large enough to discern some detail.  He shows here with lighter blue upper bulwarks, closed quarters, and the suggestion of an upper bulwark frieze.

 

Bakhuizen has a portrait if her at the Battle of Barfleur, which is more confusing than insructive (two rows of stern windows, instead of three), but with a darker blue upper bulwark and a frieze seemingly composed of fleur-de-lis, only.  Nevertheless, it is a dramatic and spectacular portrait of the ship by someone who likely would have seen her with his own eyes.

[shipmodel]

EJ's post got me thinking about what the artist sees and what he draws and, specifically, about the Berain stern painting.  I think that there is an obvious artistic distortion that has been perpetuated as an engineering distortion.  Maybe this is well known, but I haven't seen it discussed.

 

Here is the painting.  To improve clarity and detail I cropped and enlarged the QG section, then converted to black/white and adjusted the contrast.

 

 

 

To me it looks like it was painted from an angle off the starboard stern.  The way the size and angles of the lower lights diminishes towards the bow edge of the QG, the different perspectives of the dolphin pairs that flank the upper windows, and, most of all, the way the forward edge of the QG seems to overlap the two middle gunport openings.  No shipwright would have built such an unworkable port once, much less twice.  But it is exactly what an artist would see as the bulge of the QG obscured the ports.  

 

So, with the starboard aft corner of the ship being closest to the artist, it's size, and especially its height, would be increased by the optical effects of parallax.  This artificially raises the rail and increases the sheer.  It also increases the angle of the QG windows.  Of course they do not necessarily match the sheer of the interior decks, as indicated by the lines of the gunports, but would the decks of the galleries really be so steep for the admiral and captain?

   

The problem is that the painting is presented as though it was seen from directly athwartships.  As though it is an engineering drawing without perspective.  Unfortinately, the parallax issues were not adjusted and therefore any plans drawn over the painting will incorporate them.  I suspect that the Heller kit does, too.

 

To get an idea of what adjustments could be made, I did a little fooling around with the image.  I put the picture into Photoshop and used the 'distort' function to put in about a 10 degree angle to a vanishing point at the horizon line.  Here is how it came out

 

 

Immediately the sheer dropped, the galleries leveled, and even the hull decorations took on a squarer, more regular appearance.  This may not be the precise amount of parallax to correct, but it is a start.

 

To see what this might look like with a larger area of the ship, I went to Marc's plans.   Here they are without adjustment

 

And here after putting in a similar distortion angle

 

Finally, to see what effect this might have, I cropped out the QG from the adjusted drawing

 

And dropped it onto Marc's distorted plans.

 

 

Although this is just some doodling around, and without adjusting the designs and angles of the QG, I think it sits pretty well.

 

Marc - I know that you are kit bashing the Heller, so you may be locked into its design, but this may be a consideration when you go to scratch-building your own.  

 

Or I could be completely wrong.  LOL !

 

Dan

 

 

 

 

 

[EJ_L]

I do know that I have leveled off the decks in the cabins considerably when I built them on my S.R.. Doing that lowered the sheer considerably but made the decks, in my own opinion, much more realistic and usable. Prior to this, the interior cabin floors would have been sloping at such an angle that all the furniture would be constantly sliding forward. I would hate to see what would have been happening to the canons and if one came loose... that would not have been good.

 

On my La Couronne build, I noticed this same issue with the sheer on it. The poop deck reflects this dramatically but also the quarter galley turrets and the space between them also show how steep the sheer is. I would hate to have to try to remain upright on a deck that steep let alone stop furniture and especially cannon balls if they got loose from causing damage. I have seen a couple other builds of that ship where they have lowered it and the end result looks much better. While ships of this era and earlier did have an extremely large amount of sheer, I think that today's model designs have over exaggerated it as they are largely based on the artwork that quite possibly is over drawn.

[Hubac's Historian]

Dan, to answer your question as to whether the decks of the QGs would really be so steep, as to present problems for the Admiral and the Captain:  well, you know the old saying about sxxt flowing downhill!

 

To be honest, your perceptive eye has brought light to an interesting conversation about what the artist's actual perspective may have been.  Certainly, the issues of the partially covered gun ports, and the varied dolphins, and the tapering lower gallery windows would all seem to be victims of parallax.  That makes sense.  However, the overwhelming perspective, as you mention, is that of being athwartship.  And that is not consistent with parallax.

 

I was aware that the lower gallery ports tapered in size.  My thought was that I would have to work on my tracing of the QG from the top down, and establish parallel guides for the main deck open-walk railing, as well as, the middle deck windows beneath them.  The distortion tool you are using here, on the other hand, is a really fascinating thing.  I'll have to see whether GIMP has something like that in its arsenal because I agree that perspective of the QGs can be improved a bit, as the relate to the sheer of the Heller kit.

 

I suspect, though, that these variances are merely the result of un-intended artistic inaccuracies.  Although our eye can perceive that the windows taper, for example, the actual difference in window height is really quite small, and I think the natural product of a handmade portrait.  Nevertheless, it is still something that needs to be corrected because, in three-dimensions, that discrepancy will really become apparent.

 

I am pretty locked in to the kit sheer-line, however, this is another of the kit's details that I really like;  it's a nice, gentle curve.  The aspect of the Heller kit that bothered me, in this area, was the absence of the ornamental sheer cap dolphin because it appeared too stepped and without transition. 

[Hubac's Historian]

After giving it a little more thought, I wonder whether the issue of the tapering windows isn't deliberate.  Perhaps the windows are intended to taper taller, as theyprogress aft with the increasing sheer of the stern.  That doesn't offer any insight into the dolphins, nor the partially obstructed ports, but the ports won't be an issue on my build and I will trace the dolphins as they are.

[CédricL]

Hello Marc,

 

A lot of reading since my last passage.

About the sheer of the decks, and of the wales; be careful that any modifictions will involve some major surgery (I 'm still busy with that problem).

So, and if you do not plan to transform the hull itself I would suggest you to let them as molded and to build your QG in the shape of the existing wales and the avalaible space.

 

Notice also that Jean Boudriot gave an example in his book "Les vaisseaux de 74 à 120 canons" of the différences that could be seen between the drawings and the real execution of the ship (from aship taken by the British and then redrawn). Wich means that the drawings of Berain could also have been interpreted by the sculpors of the Brest arsenal.

 

"Bon courage !"

 

Have a nice day.

[Hubac's Historian]

Cedric, do you have that Boudriot illustration handy?  Can you share that digitally? I would love to see that.

[Hubac's Historian]

Yes, I will not be modifying the sheer of the wales, nor the upper bulwarks.  I will, however, make small adjustments to my tracings of the quarter galleries.  And I may, yet, remove that upper most round port, and/or pierce two octagonal ports.  Not sure about all of that, as yet, but I will figure it out.  My inclination, though, is to leave the round port, arm it with a gun, and add both octagonal ports, un-armed.  My reasoning is that adding the octagonal ports, allows for greater fidelity to the Berain drawing, while keeping the round port maintains my armament at 110 guns.  A compromise.

[CédricL]

1 hour ago, Hubac'sHistorian said:

Yes, I will not be modifying the sheer of the wales, nor the upper bulwarks.  I will, however, make small adjustments to my tracings of the quarter galleries.  And I may, yet, remove that upper most round port, and/or pierce two octagonal ports.  Not sure about all of that, as yet, but I will figure it out.  My inclination, though, is to leave the round port, arm it with a gun, and add both octagonal ports, un-armed.  My reasoning is that adding the octagonal ports, allows for greater fidelity to the Berain drawing, while keeping the round port maintains my armament at 110 guns.  A compromise.

You are probably right to do so.

I suspect those octogonal gunports to be in fact small windows for quarters for officers on the poopdeck (I do not know the exact term for that in English, those are small wooden structures acting as cabins for one officier).

 

Maybe could M. Saunier tell us more about that fact and the presence of them on the Soleil Royal..

 

PS: I will try to scan the drawings in J. Boudriot's book you asked for and post them in a few days.

[Hubac's Historian]

That would be excellent, Cedric, if you don't mind doing that.  Also, what you are suggesting about windows in the officers' quarters makes sense.  That seems quite plausible to me.  Perhaps Michel or Neko will weigh in, at some point.  If they are officers' quarters, then some attempt at glazing should be made, no?

[vossiewulf]

On 6/8/2017 at 5:34 PM, Hubac'sHistorian said:

The distortion tool you are using here, on the other hand, is a really fascinating thing.  I'll have to see whether GIMP has something like that in its arsenal because I agree that perspective of the QGs can be improved a bit, as the relate to the sheer of the Heller kit.

Distort is one of the transform modes in Photoshop but the one Dan should have used, and you should look for in GIMP, is Perspective. That mode is designed to do exactly what you're trying to do here.

 

I also like the dueling SR stern drawings with HH and Cedric's profile images 

 

[CédricL]

2 hours ago, vossiewulf said:

I also like the dueling SR stern drawings with HH and Cedric's profile images 

 

Hello vossiewulf,

My profile is the stern of La Reine, not le Soleil Royal !

Both were near sister-ships indeed, but you'll find lots of différences between them.

 

Have a nice day.

 

(still don't know how to add smileys)

 

[vossiewulf]

8 minutes ago, CédricL said:

Hello vossiewulf,

My profile is the stern of La Reine, not le Soleil Royal !

Both were near sister-ships indeed, but you'll find lots of différences between them.

 

Have a nice day.

 

(still don't know how to add smileys)

 

One is click on the smiley face at the top of the message-typing interface and then click on whichever one you want.

 

Most of them can just be typed. Colon : followed by ) =

Semi colon ; followed by ) =

 

[CédricL]

 

I even did not see that button.....

 

Thanks vossiewulf.

 

 

 

 

[shipmodel]

Hi Vossiewulf - 

 

Thanks for suggesting the 'perspective' adjustment function in Photoshop.  I fooled around with it a bit and it really does do a good job of adjusting for the optical distortions of perspective and parallax.  

 

Dan

 

[vossiewulf]

7 hours ago, shipmodel said:

Hi Vossiewulf - 

 

Thanks for suggesting the 'perspective' adjustment function in Photoshop.  I fooled around with it a bit and it really does do a good job of adjusting for the optical distortions of perspective and parallax.  

 

Dan

 

 

Welcome. It's not perfect but it works well for some images. If that doesn't work, you can try the Warp option under Transform, it's the most powerful but as with everything in computers that gets that label, that also means it's hard to control. You have four moveable control points on the corners, plus they each have two bezier control points that can be also be used to stretch the outer edges of your selection. Then you can also click anywhere within the selected area and click and drag to move the contents around and other areas with get squished or stretched to compensate.

 

One trick with all of these (that really need a "strength" setting) to attenuate the effects is to select an area bigger than that you want to alter. So if you have a drawing you can increase the size of the canvas and then select an area bigger than the drawing itself and that will make the effects of dragging transform control points less dramatic.