Shiny parts, metal, wet things. Yeah. Sweaty flesh of your barbarian warriors.
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HM Armed Cutter Alert (1777) - Vanguard Models - 1/64
- Thread starter Smithy
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Shiny parts, metal, wet things. Yeah. Sweaty flesh of your barbarian warriors.
Thank you Smithy, very kind, but remember that's after years of art school and practice
I haven't done any since Clint a while back, he took me about 4 months to complete in-between work and life, I still got all the equipment and mean to get back into it (one day) but found modelling as a new passion and absolutely loving every minute
Here's my friend Clint
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Being a working class, ex-military Brit I cannot express my feelings about that without swearing.
I stuck the things down this evening. The painting’s good enough for me. (I should have used the airbrush - lazy man).
I achieved this effect, the light areas were achieved using the "dry brush" method on the gun ports, highlighting the loops. I will get to this in the review very soon. I applied light beige or gray paint with a dry brush over black paint and it also highlighted the highlights perfectly. And in general, the last photo of the general view is very beautiful, I really like it.I've been painting again today.
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I've not had much enthusiasm to spare for modelling today due to other distractions and I was mostly was applying that second thin coat so no reason for a photo. However, I've used a technique from figure modelling that you might not have seen before. It's called edge highlighting and that probably tells you most of what you need to know.
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The idea is to apply a lighter colour to edges which would catch the light on the real thing. When you look at a boat in a harbour in the sunshine, all of the edges shine, even on matt painted surfaces. we see this without noticing and use it to comprehend the volumes of the various objects that make up the boat. As I look around my apartment, I see that shine on the edges of the bookshelves, the hiking pole, my coffee cup. It's so everywhere that normally only artists see it, but take a look and it's there. The problem for modellers is that on a miniature, that effect is lost in the small scale of the object. Mini painters learn to reproduce the effect with paint.
First a lighter shade of the base colour is used along all of the edges, then an even lighter one on the topmost parts and finally a white dot or two on the very highest points. If it's done well it's very subtle almost impossible to see on a photo because it looks so normal but the mini really seems to 'gain volume' when it's in your hand. I don't do it well because I'm not a big fan of subtle.
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The effect I'm aiming at is something I call 'Grand Opera'. I don't want my models to look like life, I want them LARGER than life. Think of the costumes and scenery at an opera house and you'll get the idea. I use only one layer of a colour which is quite markedly lighter than the base colour; mid grey over 'almost black' or a yellow orange over red.
It's not difficult to do and the effect can be quite dramatic. Often the viewers will know there's something happening to make the model 'pop' like a Viewmaster slide (remember them?) but they won't know what it is.
I don't know whether I can make it work as well over a great big boat model as I could on an armoured knight or a tank or aircraft though. We'll soon find out.
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To get those fine lines right on the edges I use the side of my brush in an almost dry condition, scrubbing off the wetness with paper. That's really hard on the brush and though I use cheap semi-disposable brushes, I do like to make them last as long as possible. I recommend using this or one of the many equivalent products at the end of a painting session. They make the brushes last and make them work better too.
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And finally, finally...
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I was bored with that running gag so here's the tidy abrasives drawer. Usually it's only like this at the beginning of a project so this is a bit of a bonus for me.
The pegs hold pre-cut strips of the various grades I use, of a size suitable for the erasers which I use as blocks when sanding curved surfaces. The spare pieces of MDF from laser cut frets are used as sanding sticks and pads for flat surfaces. I make both the eraser and the MDF shapes as required for a particular job and then come to love them and use them over and over again. You'll see 120, 240, and 600 grit. I need 400 rather than 600 which is a bit fine for wood but great on plastic so I have lots leftover to use up
I use good quality wet and dry paper which is capable of being unclogged easily with either a toothbrush, a standard eraser or the special sticky rubber pads (top right) sold for cleaning disc and belt sanders. Most of the paper we throw away isn't blunt, it's just clogged. I get four or five times the use out of my paper by cleaning it, though of course it does wear out eventually as the cutting edges fall off or more rarely become dulled.
The cheap scissors are for cutting the paper and amazingly they still work after at least seven years of this scissor torture.
The big jar is 0000 wire wool for taking the shine off varnish and also for applying wax polish over a varnished surface.
The small jar has a small patch of tights/pantyhose which is excellent for getting that final polish on plastic (It's also the best material ever invented for getting a parade gloss on your shoes, assuming I'm not the only man left in the world who shines leather shoes - I seem to be the only one around here!)
Almost invisible next to the scissors is a fibreglass pencil for cleaning metal surfaces for soldering.
And that, guys and gals is where I'll stop for the night, though I've only just scratched the surface of the subject.
Coming from you Sir I am humbledPhotorealism. Unbelievable. Everyone here’s a genius..
@The Ships Cat its a bit ‘grand opera’ isn’t it? More real than real life, bigger, makes me see more detail than a photo. Interesting.
Thanks mate, the odd thing here is that I can see my errors in him, like you see your errors in your work of art but to everyone else she's beautiful.
Thank you very much. It means a lot when you say that. (I’ve seen your work!)
Yes, there’s little difference between edge highlighting and drybrush. The main thing is to move the brush only downwards, in the direction of the light falling onto the object.
Two beautifuls? I’m outvoted.
Actually, now the deck is populated and there’s more colour I think she’s a fine craft too. I refer to the vessel, not the model, because, as you say, I know where it’s not quite right.
I’m far too new at this to get complacent. There’s lots more to do and do better.
I’ve done little today on the model but spent a lot of time on SoS, learning.
I did however, fit the shot garlands. Half the ball bearings fell off during the process. CA doesn’t like sticking to polished steel? I glued them back in with some very stringy sticky jewelry adhesive but then had to repaint them. I’ll re-highlight them later.
The channels are mounted. The instructions said pin them because they take the strain of the shrouds. That’s not really true as the tension of the shrouds holds the channels ON as it bends around them through the chains to the hull below and that’s where I will be using pins.
I declined to pin the channels but did add a discrete reinforcing strip underneath. Just in case.
Work of art mate, those highlights are definitely the way to go.
Unsure of how I could apply the same thing to Franken-Durance but I'll definitely be looking on areas to apply a bit of depth.
Like 3000 feet under pack ice
Unsure of how I could apply the same thing to Franken-Durance but I'll definitely be looking on areas to apply a bit of depth.
Like 3000 feet under pack ice
I think my next job will be stropping me deadeye, which sounds like an Aussie euphemism if ever I heard one.
I'm going to use that
The Rigging has Begun
I was busy fitting eyebolts to the deck this morning when it occurred to me that was a rigging operation. It seems that I've decided not to stop at the 'Admiralty Style' hull but to go straight on and finish her. I'm still not putting sails on - textiles are not my thing, I throw shirts away rather than sew buttons on (once all of the buttons have gone, obviously).
Painting came first. Being in the shade at the side of the boat, the channels were in need of a highlight and I took the opportunity to do the rest of the black paint at the same time. This is a 'before' photo of the bow timber.
Ditto the stern.
There was little finesse needed today. On big things like these I simply dry-brushed Medium Sea Grey downwards over everything black. The 'black' is actually Panzer Grey as I think black is too black for models. There are two reasons for this. First, any black paint, and perhaps particularly the 18th century version, soon fades to grey outside in the weather. Second, there's scale effect. You see the model from 2 feet away but the real thing would be 2 x 64 feet away to appear the same size. Black paint ar 128 feet away looks grey due to atmospheric haze. Blue-grey actually.
And there's the bow highlighted.
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Now the rigging began, though as yet without ropes.
The Vanguard Models designer is very keen to use photo-etched brass (PE) wherever possible. Some of his ideas are great - just wait until you see the way he's done the chains. Some other PE applications go beyond the capability of the material, in my opinion. (Other opinions are available.)
The PE ringbolts are theoretically good because there's actually a ring on the eyebolt, if you manage to crimp the eyebolt well enough so that the ring doesn't fall off when you try to tie anything onto it. Even when it holds together, the square section material is very obvious to the eye because of the built in highlight along the sharp edges, and looks just, wrong. Also, that sharp square edge isn't going to be kind to any thread that I pass thorough it, and will raise the fibres all the way along, assuming that it doesn't actually cut right through the thread, either at the moment of tying or two years later in your display case.
Vanguard Models have a very high reputation and price but in this case I prefer to use the round wire eyebolts left over from an OcCre kit. Cheap, easy to use, gentle on the thread, and when driven home, you can't even see the join. Of course, there's no ring but seriously, who cares? Not I.
The belaying pins are similarly tragic when made in PE. Too flat, too sharp, too small. Even my Auntie Mabel knew that belaying pins are round - she'd seen Mutiny on the Bounty in 1935. "Ooooh, that Clark Gable!" If only she'd known...
I drilled out the holes in the pin rail as big as I dared, but still had to whittle 0.2mm off these little leftover pins. I seem to have a lot of leftovers' don't I? This is because I fmessed up a few model kits when I first went into wood.
They might be a bit overscale but to my eye, they are the real deal.
There's dust everywhere on this model - I even tried to blow it off the photograph a minute ago.
This is the pinrail that will go around the base of the mast.
And now prepared for the wooden pins. That is one pile of dust that I didn't blow away. Brass swarf is horrible stuff, as you probably know. Sharp and tiny, it works its way into the skin to become invisible and painful splinters. One time, aged 16, I brushed a bench down with a bare hand after filing brass for an hour. Lesson very much learned. Ow!
OcCre eyebolts in situ, and the gap is effectively invisible. I tried a blackening solution in-situ but as the brass already has an oxide layer, it didn't take. Perhaps I'll paint them. I'm beginning to think though, that brass looks really nice and if there's a case for not painting the wood of our models because we prefer the look of the wood, why not leave the brass brassy? I could have left those steel cannonballs in natural metal finish too.
This is PE utilised well (and blackened very badly) in my view. The fancy folded pieces look very nice to my eye and the huge ring piece for the forestay seems just right, despite being a slight simplification from the AotS drawing.
I have a feeling that there's going to be a lot of little differences between the AotS rigging plan and the one in the kit instruction manual. That worries me slightly. I think I'll go with the kit plan, because it will probably work on the kit, and add whatever pretty flourishes I can manage from the reference book.
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I very much like the treatment on the cap rails...
Why thanks Paul.
I dry-brush with soft make-up blushers bought on Amazon from China. They come in a variety of sized and cost almost nothing.
I dip them very slightly in undiluted paint and then scrub gently on white paper, not kitchen roll, until the brush leaves no mark at all on the paper. Then it's ready for use on the model. This is quite tough on the brushes but they clean up OK in isopropyl alcohol, and last very well.
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Useful tutorial. Chock full of great information and ideas. 