initial Soleil royal using the heller 1/100 scale kit (post prepared in advance)

[Iterum]

Great job, Guy,
after my retina ruption some weeks ago I have got blood in my last good eye and am now again allowed to ready a bit in here and am astonished by your beautiful choice of colour.

Decission against the pure golden Version


...and Marc's colourfull luxourious "way of life".
Great individual steps you took - thanks a lot.

As I still have got three unbuild but preowned kits in store I still think about redoing one of them or the fourth (the widened hull for SAINT PHILIPPE 1693) - so MAJESTIQUE, REINE, or LYS are still possible...



Best wishes from Berlin,
Christian

 

[GuyM]

Hi I hope you'll recover soon! My choice of color reflects what is written in the document ( I hope you managed to translate some of it before your illness). Lion heads as figureheads started to become common on the French ships very late in the 1690's and throughout the eighteeth and nineteen century; before that, there was much more variety in their art and had a more closely related meaning to the specific ship....So, the lion heads became a more common design mostly to standardize the art and now more general meaning of a fleet, not the ship specifically.....

 

[Rokket]

Beautiful stern. Kind of plain looking though, don't you think?

 

[GuyM]

I think the drawing of the details is nice, but I have the same opinion about the colouring as you do

 

[Rokket]

She looks really terrific.

Hope your eye(s) are doing well. REST, I know it's hard when you have such cool model work to do, but I've known too many people, anxious to be back to normal, who do damage by not recuperating.

Rest and when you're able, keep up the great work.

 

[WilliamM]

Aurelian, I look forward to watching your project take shape. One detail that escapes me is your plan to add two gun ports to the rudder; there are already four chase ports on the lower transom, which is correct for this rate. Are you planning to add two guns at the stern counter level, above the lower chase ports?

As for colors, it will be fascinating to get a sense of what the Royal Louis (as described by Hyatt) may have looked like. I have thought about what I might do, if I were to take this approach to the color scheme. I doubt that a stark white would have been probable, so I would probably be inclined to do a very faint gray wash after a stark white base coat.

Will you sand away the Heller raised grain with coarse paper? I really recommend doing this, as it will make any weather washes and shading you do look more realistic.

Your stern window plan will be three windows to either side of a central door opening, like the Royal Louis?

View attachment 342584

If you aren’t planning to cut away the lower hull, how will you create enough space to scale that convincingly? Within the stock stern-plate width, I think you can successfully re-scale for six windows, but I’m not as convinced that you can add a doorway to that as well.

Marc,

I was lucky in that I was able to purchase 15 bottles of the old Polly S brand of Aged White back in the day. It looks good on models without copper plating details.

Bill

 

[WilliamM]

Marc,

I was lucky in that I was able to purchase 15 bottles of the old Polly S brand of Aged White back in the day. It looks good on models without copper plating details.

Bill

I am also a little confused. Aurelian, I strongly recommend filling in the knee of the head. I wasn't sure whether or not you had planned to do so.

Bill