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

[Hubac’s Historian]

Here is another instructive and interesting shot of the so-called Phoenix from Album de Colbert:



My takeaway, here, is that Heller (vis-a-vis Tanneron) shows the very pronounced re-curve or outboard flare of the forward bulwarks above the forecastle deck. This design shift enabled the mounting of the cathead timbers to the forecastle deck, rather than below the forecastle deck, as seen above, in earlier practice. A ship such as the Phoenix did not have a forecastle deck.

 

[aurélien wolff]

Heller got a model of the phénix out too. I wonder if tanneron didn't chosed to ignore berain drawings due to their inconcistencies, or he decided to take artistic licence there too.

source: http://hellerpassionmaquettes.blogspot.com/2007_10_31_archive.html
I'll add the trailboard on my SR using the phénix and other ships from louis XIV reign as inspirations. For the figurehead, I intend to retain the tail but change the top by reproducing some parts of other figures in resin and using milliput to get the mermaid with the sun and crown (the hardest part for me). for the colors of my figurehead, it'll be gold, same for the apollo pediment with azurite blue as on the tanneron model.

 

[Hubac’s Historian]

I’ve seen some decent kit-bashes of the Heller Phoenix, but Heller gets the sheerline all wrong; it is much too flat. They seem to have taken the Album de Colbert a little too literally, in this regard. The draftsmanship of that document is highly variable and not always truly representative.

 

[aurélien wolff]

I wonder if for the trailboard, I can't use inspiration of other ships with the tail of the figure head in the middle of the pattern even if they're from later than the 1st soleil royal, per example, Le brilliant, Le terrible or Le foudroyant who has part of its figure head in the trailboard too, same for the saint louis from 1693 with its figurehead leg in the trailboard. I'll take Puget work in account too, Patrick Villier book as Puget drawing of a 1st rate ship in it too and it's interesting the artist represented the striped flag, but didn't do the fleur de lys or the king's arm on the huge stern flag (wich heller seem to have undersized).

 

[Hubac’s Historian]

The ship pictured above, as I have recently come to understand, is the Royal Louis of 1692, which is the replacement for the RL le Vieux, as represented in my Van Beecq portrait sometime after her refit in 1677.

Many years ago, I wrote to the Musee for information on SR. What they sent back to me was a poorly photocopied collection of images that consisted mainly of the fragmentary portraiture commonly associated with the ship. The Musee provided no additional context other than the catalogue notes scribbled beneath each image.

Among those images are what may be the bow and stern proposal drawings for the replacement SR of 1693, ex Foudroyant:



Again, the bow drawing is strange and questionable for SR as no forecastle is represented, and in fact, the cathead timber clearly springs from the main deck level. Nonetheless, it is an interesting view of the bow structure from the time of the Second Marine.

 

[aurélien wolff]

That drawing of the bow is verry different from what berain or tanneron did, per example, the figurehead or the portholes are verry different and the no 24 drawing is in "floating baroque". I'm using the book ships drawing more as inspiration, per example, for the trailboard. The book has drawings of 1723 Le foudroyant. To integrate the trailboard pattern taking heller figurehead tail in account, maybe something akin to what berain did on the Le saint louis from 1693(page 90 of floating baroque, can't find a drawing of the beakhead online).

 

[aurélien wolff]

An interesting technic for the deadlock on this heller Le glorieux build, I wonder if this wouldn't be cheaper than taking the wooden one https://www.laroyale-modelisme.net/...heller-1-150-de-lostiznaos?highlight=glorieux I think I'll do that for my 3rd battery guns.

 

[aurélien wolff]

There's this rough scheme of the monarque beakhead by puget but I'm not sure how accurate it is to real ship due to it being a scheme

source: http://marsyas2.blogspot.com/2014/01/r-martano-peire-puget-touloun-1645-1659_18.html It's in page 44 of Guy M document too.
I note the trailboard pattern and the absence of fleur de lys on the beakhead and how the headrail is shown.

 

[aurélien wolff]

I wonder where does the idea the trailboard was painted of blue and yellow gold come from, in the royal louis description page 30, blue isn't mentionned. https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b86069950/f48.item I wonder if the color there couldn't be somewhat like what vary did on his painting.

 

[Hubac’s Historian]

Where do you see a description of blue and yellow gold?

 

[aurélien wolff]

In Guy M document, for the headrail, he added blue (page 28 of his article).

 

[Hubac’s Historian]

, yes - I think it is perfectly valid to go either red or blue with gold and yellow ocher on the headrails. The trailboard is another element, altogether. Here, I think you would only see yellow ocher and gold accents.

 

[aurélien wolff]

So gold and blue are valid for a initial soleil royal. I wonder why blue wasn't mentionned in the royal louis description. For the modlings on the 3rd battery, I'm hesitating because I never saw a puget ship with the pattern michel saulnier or neko did on their soleil royal yet, so I'm not a 100% sure if there'd be valid for a initial soleil royal https://5500.forumactif.org/t52p500-soleil-royal-1669-echelle-1-72

 

[Hubac’s Historian]

If you are referring to the panel mouldings and swagged garland between main deck ports, both Michel and Marc took their cue for that from the Berain/Vary drawings, which would be refit SR.

As for early SR, it is difficult to say what would be between the main deck ports, or perhaps the middle deck ports. The RL Hyatt document describes heraldic badges and trophies/implements of war.

You can get some sense of that from the Monarque:

 

[aurélien wolff]

Ok, I thought of a bit of a theory: Since Berain had to keep as much of the old SR as possible in the second one, I wonder if it might be possible he took the moldings of the 1st SR and adapted them on his 3rd battery beakhead drawing as part of his proposition(I read in guy M article it might've been one, page 89, to me, this might explain quite a bit of inconcistencies, patrick villiers seems to entertain this idea too).

 

[Hubac’s Historian]

It is possible. Because there is so little first-hand source material to go on, one has quite a lot of latitude in deigning their own solutions to these problems.

 

[aurélien wolff]

Ok so since he kept as much as he could of the old one, he could've adapted it in his own style and took in account the new directive. You'd still got the drawing inconcistencies since it's a proposition and maybe it wasn't a100% fellowed by the master carpenter and the sculptors(per example, the refit SR still had its forecastle). The molding of Neko/Michel saulnier is still fine for a third battery then.

 

[WilliamM]

You got it but again, when the 1690's came those royal flags disappeared completely.........

Are you sure that you meant the 1690s and not the early 1780s?

Bll

 

[aurélien wolff]

On the flags, I noticed they're often done white on painting/drawings of french ships, I wonder why they didn't represented the king coat of arms and fleur de lys. Too complicated to do? A bit of a update summarizing my modification list:
-Chase gun on the beakhead
-Differents flag
-Broadening of the stern to add in more windows
-3rd battery molding inspired by Berain/Vary, also on the beakhead and stern portholes (inspired by the Royal louis here)
-Fleur de lys on the stern side and forecastle/beakhead
-Trailboard inspired by Puget/Berain work
-Headrail correction (forgot the name of the parts between the hull and headrail that need to be added)
-Opened quarter galleries, I'll keep the one from Tanneron
-Correcting the 3rd battery portholes
-Decoration on the port lid (fleur de lys and another symbol, inspired by the dauphin royal and royal louis).

 

[aurélien wolff]

Guess what finally arrived today? The behemoth that is heller soleil royal box, this thing is somewhat the lenght as my bed breadth.Oddly enough, some sails are deformed while other aren't (might be due to the transport), some part broke off their sprues and a crack on the stern façade (easy to fix and won't really matter with all the modification I planned for it). I noticed the injection pins right away, won't mind sanding them, I dealt with much worst(the joy of a wing always ungluying itself whenever it get the opportunity, meaning I have to redo the join over and over again). The strings were a bit of a mess for some reason, the decals where well preserved somehow.