Mayflower by felelo - Revell - 1:83 - PLASTIC

[felelo]

Hello everyone, I'm Felipe from Brazil, and I'll be sharing here my work on the Revell 1:83 Mayflower!

 

Around two years ago I've started a topic here on a Pinta Caravel kit I was building, that project stalled because I've moved to college, were I don't have space nor time to work with wooden models, so I decided to sail to the waters o plastic kits. After a lot of research I've decided to buy the Revell Mayflower, great kit, beautiful ship and nice scale. Before starting it I built the 1:200 Academy New Bedford Whaler, just to feel more comfortable with the material, although I've built some plastic models before, they were never ships.

 

I started the kit by paiting the decks, my intention was to use AndyMech's technic, it worked and it is amazing, slow but easy. I ended up with an weatered effect, the decks look old very used, I don't now how accurate that is for the original Mayflower, but I am very satisfied with the result!

 

For those who don't know the procedure I'll quote AndyMech:

 

"Next up was the gun deck painting.  I was going for a wood deck look without actually planking the deck.

 

Overall, I remember the steps as:

 

- Deck were spray painted black (seen previously)

- I applied a base coat of "wood" color

- Using the back of a #11 knife, I scored each plank line

- I mixed a little darker and lighter "wood" color paint by adding a few drops of black and white, then individually painted each plank a random color.  

- Probably had to re-score the plank lines again.

- Final step was to apply either a wash or drybrush black onto the deck for some detail and depth.

 

I tried both wash and dry brush and was happier with the dry brush effect."

First test:

 

 

Painted the pieces with a layer of black, using a nylon brush:

 

 

Proceded to paint the decks with a light brown color, and started to score the lines:

 

 

 

This technic needs practice, the amount of black paint needes to be right, too little and while scoring you will end up taking out all paint and leaving plastic to be seen, too much and you loose all detail of wood grain. The brown layer also needs attention, I made it thin because I feared more paint wood hide the wood grain, that left me with a dirtier look, of old used wood in bad condition. If the intention is for a brand new look I believe that many layers of very thin paint would be best!

Also the scoring and scratching: I did it in many diferent ways, almost randomly after noticing that trying to be very precise scoring each plank is not very helpfull.

 

Thats all for today, following are some pics of the hull dry-fitted just for fun(and a little friend):

 

 

 

 

[husky1943]

Howdy Felelo,

 

It looks great!  Good job so far.  I will be following your build, since I am finishing up the exact same model.  I look forward to the finished ship!

 

Ciao for now

Rob 

[ScottRC]

Great start.  I did the same thing in college.  I built the Revell Santa Maria in my dorm room, used acrylics and pastels.  Kept my rigging chops up.  Count me in to follow along on your progress.  

[felelo]

Thank you guys! Little Update here

 

I started working on the hull, for now I did mostly the lower section, leaving the aftercastle for later because I still haven't decided on the colors, not shure if I'll follow Revell's scheme.

 

I used the same technic, black base, brown, scraping and then I painted some individual planks. I scraped the details of the gunports to bring up the texture of it, proceeding to paint the hings black. Looks very nice for me! 

 

 

 

I've experimente with a thin pen to represent nails, but I don't know if I'll used it.

 

 

Painted the forecastle walls and proceded to glue them to the deck(the deck assemply is not glued to the hulls yet, just dry-fitted)

 

 

 

 

I'm very happy with the looks of the model for now... I'm worried about gluing the hole deck, uppers decks and hull... After some tests I've notice the parts have various gaps and are not very precise, it will demand attention, planning and patience from me. The painting looks so nice I'm afraid to make assembling mistakes and take the magic away hahaha...

 

And again, this technic for the planking feels like magic!

[husky1943]

Howdy Felelo,

 

Yes, the poor fit of the parts is a major problem with this particular model.  It's a shame, because otherwise, it was a lot of fun to build and looks great when finished (other than the really SMALL size).  Yours is looking fantastic.  Do you remember tying two "A" blocks below the quarterdeck?  You should run some line through them first so that you will be able to use them in the rigging scheme later on.  If you don't they are almost impossible to access with all the masts and ratlines installed.  Just a thought.  Keep up the excellent work!  Oh, are you going to put nails all over the hull like you did aft? 

 

Ciao for now

Rob

[felelo]

Thanks husky! I did install them! Later I'll post a pic of it, because I'm not a 100% sure I did it right(the quarterdeck is not glued yet)!