Unicorn by José Moro - from the Tintin books

[José Moro]

This is my first project after almost 40 years of inactivity. The Unicorn is a fictitious ship created by Hergé, the famosos comic artist. the Unicorn is a 17th-century ship of the third rank, a vessel with three-masts and 50 guns, more than 40 metres long and 11 metres wide. You may have seen it in the Spielberg’s film “the adventures of Tintín”. The real challenge with this model is that there is no documentation apart from some old drawings that are kept in the Hergé’s museum and the snapshots you can find in the comic books. 
I have been working on it for a lot of time, and now I have the water forms of the hull. But before publishing them here for those interested in building it, I would like to know of it is legal to do it. Any idea?

[MichaelW]

I don't know about the copyright restrictions, but I'm looking forward to photos of your build.

[José Moro]

Actually I haven’t started building yet, I am in the phase of design.

[ccoyle]

38 minutes ago, José Moro said:

I would like to know of it is legal to do it. Any idea?

 

Long answer: Models are kind of a gray area in copyright law, but the governing principle in IP protection is the question of whether there is potential, intentional or not, to defraud the original IP owner. Since you are building a one-off model from scratch, as opposed to designing a kit with the intent to market it, you are neither defrauding the author's estate nor any of the production companies involved in making the film (and there were so many of the latter that I'd wager it'd be difficult to find out who actually owns the IP rights to the film version). In any case, all of the representations of the fictional Unicorn, book and film, look like late-17th century two-decked men-of-war, so you could hardly be faulted for building a generic ship of that type and calling it "Unicorn." This is quite different from the examples of Black Pearl and Flying Dutchman from the POTC universe; in their cases, the unusual appearance of each ship is a highly creative work protected by IP law. Even then, though, you'd likely be safe if you were building only a one-off model for yourself.

 

Short answer: Yes, you can post pictures.

[José Moro]

Thanks for your clear explanation, ccoyle. I promis to upload the drawings as soon as I have something worth to be shown

[chris watton]

There should be a Hachette version out there somewhere, as I did this 10 years ago, with the movie blueprints. Odd looking thing...

[WalrusGuy]

Watching the TinTin series sparked my interest in model ships, so I'll be keen to follow along

 

From a Google search it seems that the Unicorn resembles the Thomson Collection’s Breda (images below from https://ago.ca/agoinsider/tintin-and-thomson-collection-ship-models). There could be plans out there for this ship, but I am not sure... 

 

[José Moro]

The Unicorn - Preliminary study

 

There is no way to properly document a vessel that didn’t exist. The research must be made solely on the observations of the drawings that Hergé included in his book, and none of them gave any clue of the way the hull was constructed. Fortunately I found a book titled “Tous les secrets de La Licorne” (All of the Unicorn secrets), written by Yves Horeau, Jacques Hiron and Dominique Maricq, published by Gallimard et Éditions Moulinsart, october, 5, 2017, where they stated that Hergé used a french battleship of the Luis XVI navy, “Le Brillant” (Fig. 1) as a model for the Unicorn. In fact, both the name “Unicorn” and the bow figurehead were adopted from a british fregate, the HMS Unicorn (1824). See Fig. 2.

 

 

Fig. 1

 

Fig. 2
 

At this point I have something to start with. I can assume that the Unicorn (the fictitious one) has to be constructed using similar techniques as the ones used in Le Brillant, that is, the “overlapping ties” technique that can be seen in the XVII century French and Spanish vessels.

Starting with the basic structure, the keel, curved pieces of log were installed perpendicularly and then secured into position by using wood spikes. The log pieces were assembled with dovetails. (Fig. 3)

Fig. 3

 

(To be continued)

Edited February 7, 2021 by José Moro
Century error

[José Moro]

Hello everybody. It has been a long time since my last post. I was really busy and had no time to work on my project. I finally have the water forms of the hull, and I plan to build them in solid wood before starting with the final qarters, just to make sure the general forms are correct. The following picture is a snapshot of my design.

[Rayne]

Will you ever plan on finishing this sheet? I’m new to building model ships and I am dying to create the ship from tintin

[empathry]

Hi José ; the ORIGINAL plan exists and has been published in 2002 by the French review BATEAU MODELE.  This plan is an official one with Moulisart authorisation (and licence).