YUANQING MODELS 1:50 Scale SAN Felipe Build Log.

[Phillipsart]

Technical Builder’s Log – Big Day on the 1:50 SAN Felipe

Today was one of those rare modelling days where the progress surprised even me. I managed to get far more done on the 1:50 scale SAN Felipe hull than I had planned, and seeing the transformation has given me a huge second wind on this build.



Hull Painting – A Change of Direction

Originally, my intention was to give the lower hull a perfectly smooth, car-like finish. Yesterday I spent hours sanding, filling, resanding, and chasing perfection. But the more I looked at it, the more I realised something important:



The SAN Felipe is a 400-year-old Spanish galleon, not a modern show-boat.

These ships were rugged, lived-in, heavily used vessels. Their hulls were not flawless and mirror-smooth like a brand-new fibreglass yacht.

So after reconsidering, I changed course and decided to bring out the history and age of the ship rather than hide it.



Experimenting With Paint – A Happy Risk

I wanted the individual planks under the white hull paint to subtly stand out—not exaggerated, just enough to hint at the wooden construction beneath.

To achieve this, I experimented with a paint I already had:

Rust-Oleum spray paint (very common here in Australia).

To my surprise, it reacted in a way that actually enhanced the plank lines, giving me exactly the subtle texture and historical realism I wanted. You can see in the photos how the grain, seams, and faint irregularities now show through beautifully.

This gave the hull a look that feels right for a ship of this age—weathered but not battered, textured but not rough.



Masking & Painting the Black Strake

Once the white cured properly, I masked the hull and laid down the black band.

I didn’t like how harsh the contrast was between the black and white—it looked too modern and too sharp. So I added a brilliant finishing touch:


A 0.5 × 3 mm wooden strip

I glued this along the entire length of the black/white boundary. This instantly softened the transition and added that refined, old-world craftsmanship the SAN Felipe is known for.

It now looks like a deliberate architectural detail rather than a hard paint line.


Beginning the Ornaments – Weathering Tests

I also began weathering some of the decorative ornaments. The golden trim pieces on this ship are iconic, but straight gold can look too “toy-like.” I’ve started applying subtle ageing to the filigree so the details pop and look more authentic.

Early tests came out great—aged gold with depth and shadow instead of flat yellow paint.


Summing Up Today

• Lower hull fully painted

• Spray paint experiment successfully revealed plank structure

• Black strake completed

• Wood trim installed above gun deck to clean up the colour transition

• Started ageing and weathering decorative elements

• Massive visual leap forward for the build

This model is big, and days like today remind me how satisfying it is when the vision starts to come together. The SAN Felipe hull now has character, history, and presence—exactly what I wanted.

More to come as I move into the next stage of planking the upper half and preparing the ornamentation.

 

[Phillipsart]

Slowly Preparing the Decorative Work – Gold Ornaments & Depth Experimentation


I spent today doing something a little different on the San Felipe build… getting the decorative elements ready. These big, ornate castings are such a defining feature of this ship, so I wanted to make sure I got the finish right before committing anything to the hull.

At first, I tried using a single bright gold on the ornaments. The colour itself looked nice enough, but once it dried I realised it just looked a bit… flat. No contrast, no visual depth, and the details weren’t popping the way they should. On a ship like the San Felipe, the decorations are meant to catch the eye, not look like one solid blob of yellow.


So I changed approach completely.


Step 1 – Duller Gold Base Coat

I started with a darker, duller gold base colour. Something closer to an antique gold rather than a polished one. Right away this made the small recesses, scrollwork and shield details stand out a bit more. It gives the impression of age and weight, especially perfect for a ship like this where the carvings would have been weathered, tarred, and handled over decades.




Step 2 – Bright Gold Dry Brush


Once the base was fully dry, I took a brighter gold and lightly dry brushed it over the raised surfaces. This instantly transformed the piece. The high spots lit up, the shadows stayed dark, and suddenly the whole thing had proper definition. The crown, leaves, scrolls, and shields all came alive. Exactly the type of depth I was after.

You can see on the photos how the darker undershading gives the bright areas much more presence. It no longer looks like a single monotone casting – now it has proper dimensionality.




Testing a Few Variants


I ran a couple of pieces side-by-side (you can see the two shield ornaments on the table). One has slightly heavier dry brushing, while the other has more of that aged golden look. I’m leaning toward the more balanced one – bright enough to stand out, but not so shiny that it looks toy-like.

I also painted a section of the trim with gold over black to test contrast, but that style didn’t feel quite right for this ship, so I’ll stick with the antique-gold-plus-dry-brush combination.




Fitting the Bow Decorations


I did a quick test-fit of the large bow ornament and the sweeping rails that run down the hull. Seeing them in place really gives a sense of the scale and presence of the San Felipe. The decorations are huge and dramatic, so getting the paint finish right was essential.


Still a lot more decorative parts to go, but I’m really happy with this direction. The layered gold gives that proper baroque richness the ship deserves

Next step will be attaching everything permanently after I finish the planking and get the hull colours finalised. But for now, it’s great seeing these elements finally coming to life.

 

[Phillipsart]

Preparations continue on the decorative pieces

 

[Bob Cleek]

Hull Painting – A Change of Direction

Originally, my intention was to give the lower hull a perfectly smooth, car-like finish. Yesterday I spent hours sanding, filling, resanding, and chasing perfection. But the more I looked at it, the more I realised something important:


The SAN Felipe is a 400-year-old Spanish galleon, not a modern show-boat.

These ships were rugged, lived-in, heavily used vessels. Their hulls were not flawless and mirror-smooth like a brand-new fibreglass yacht.

So after reconsidering, I changed course and decided to bring out the history and age of the ship rather than hide it.


Experimenting With Paint – A Happy Risk

I wanted the individual planks under the white hull paint to subtly stand out—not exaggerated, just enough to hint at the wooden construction beneath.

To achieve this, I experimented with a paint I already had:

Rust-Oleum spray paint (very common here in Australia).

To my surprise, it reacted in a way that actually enhanced the plank lines, giving me exactly the subtle texture and historical realism I wanted. You can see in the photos how the grain, seams, and faint irregularities now show through beautifully.

This gave the hull a look that feels right for a ship of this age—weathered but not battered, textured but not rough.

It's your model and you certainly can paint it however you wish, but if your intent is a realistic appearance, your initial approach was the correct one. The "... faint irregularities" which "now show through beautifully" are in your mind, but, if a compelling sense of realism is your goal, what you've produced would not be in your eyes. Your brain thinks "historical realism" should demand a rough surface, but at your scale viewing distance your eyes wouldn't see that. What's the scale of your model? 1:48? If so, for example, then if your model is being viewed from a distance of three feet, what the viewer's eye should see is what the full-size vessel would look like if viewed from 144 feet away. In other words, what you see in the model should be what you'd see in real life from the scale viewing distance.

Scale viewing distance is a concept that is not addressed often enough by ship model kit manufacturers in their instructions if the majority of finished kit models are any indication. It is, however, a concept that is difficult to explain with words. To develop an instinctive sense of scale viewing distance takes a fair amount of experience and I realize that many kit assemblers have limited experience with full-sized ships, particularly period vessels. The solution is to set up "experiments" which visualize full-scale viewing distance and use those for templates. (Photographs may also serve this purpose, but only if they have sufficient depth of field.) For example, when modeling at 1:48 scale and your mind tells you that copper sheathing on a hull was applied with lots of small copper tacks which are visible when viewed full-size from three feet away, ask yourself, "Can these be seen from 144 feet away?" Or if your mind knows planking was fastened with 3/4" trunnels, "Can these be seen at a scale viewing distance of 144 feet?" The best way to answer questions like this is the "eye chart test." Pace off 144 feet and find out if you can "read" the detail you're contemplating adding to your model.

Viewing distance also affects the colors and finish that our eyes see at a distance due to the behavior of light passing through the atmosphere. At a distance, colors aren't as vivid and gloss is flattened. These considerations are addressed in any basic art textbook and modelers who are interested in "realism," (and who among us isn't,) would find reading up on the subject quite helpful.

Additionally, while a commercial cargo vessel might show a lot of wear around the edges, your assumptions about the appearance of period wooden warships being "rugged, lived-in, heavily used vessels" are incorrect. Warships had huge crews and there was never any shortage of available labor. They were not only functional fighting platforms, but also "diplomatic billboards." (Hence, all that gold leafed gingerbread carving many carried.) Sailing warships, when in commission, were maintained to the highest standards possible, often with no expense spared. Heavy "weathering" is not an historically accurate look for a model of a ship of the line.

Look at the two photos below and note how the detail definition drops off the farther away the hull gets from the viewer. (The lowest photo shows a closeup of a removed piece of copper sheathing from USS Constitution. While the hull section in the background would show less definition than the copper sheet in the foreground, in this particular photo, I believe a contributing factor to the marked loss of definition is also an artifact of the camera lens' depth of field.)

Cutty Sark


USS Constitution