Occre - HMS Revenge 1577 - scale 1/85, 2nd build and why

With the white painting done it's time for some coloured decorations, there are several approaches I have seen on models to do this.
The kit is supplied with a coloured sheet to glue on the shapes where required, another option is to paint the shapes on the hull, or perhaps cut out paint individual wood shapes and stick them on.
I don't know what would have been done on the real ship, I suspect the coloured shapes would be just painted on rather than separate wood pieces painted and attached to the hull, happy to be corrected if anyone knows a resource for this.
My approach on this build is to go with the kit supplied sheet, perhaps not the experienced modelers choice but my painting skills aren't really up to this detail yet and I wanted to see how the kit supplied parts looked, if faced with the same decision on a future build with this experience my response may be different.
I tested a few different glues and found PVA worked best, the surfaces on the hull were roughed up before gluing.
 

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You have achieved a lot in a very short time, Richie. I have always had a thing for a green/white color combination whilst the red accentuates both of them most effectively. Your Revenge is coming along beautifully! Thumbs-Up

You might also want to check out @Steef66 Stephan's magnificent Spansk Galleon which features more or less the color scheme.

Spansk Galeon Billing Boats kit bashing

I made a few new pictures of the ship outside and inside: Spansk Galeon Billing Boats, kit bashing the hull to a Flemish Galleon and rigging to the book of Peter Kirsch "Die Galleonen". The sails and flags are designed by me and printed by Kolderstok.
shipsofscale.com
 
dockattner said:
Wow! An explosion of colors! When you started painting the cap rails and wales white I secretly wanted to stop you. But it all makes perfect sense now. Awesome job!
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Haha thank you, yes all the white did look a bit of a mess before.
It's a bit shiny in the photos but with a coating over the prints it should dull it down a bit.
 
Heinrich said:
You have achieved a lot in a very short time, Richie. I have always had a thing for a green/white color combination whilst the red accentuates both of them most effectively. Your Revenge is coming along beautifully! Thumbs-Up

You might also want to check out @Steef66 Stephan's magnificent Spansk Galleon which features more or less the color scheme.

Spansk Galeon Billing Boats kit bashing

I made a few new pictures of the ship outside and inside: Spansk Galeon Billing Boats, kit bashing the hull to a Flemish Galleon and rigging to the book of Peter Kirsch "Die Galleonen". The sails and flags are designed by me and printed by Kolderstok.
shipsofscale.com
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Thank you, there was a bit about the colour decorations in post 54, I think that was one of the things that first attracted me to this ship.

I did mention previously I started the posts after I had been building for a while so time has compressed slightly :), almost back in real time now so new posts will slow, I think the rigging is going to take me quite a while.

Yes I was following Stephan's build thank you.
 
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It is good to see that more People dare to use colour on these type of ships. When you start, everybody is concerten and sceptic. But when you finished the colouring it just looks amazing. Good choise to use the white.
Thanks Heinrich to attempt me about this build. Looks amazing.
For the rigging I use the book of Peter Kirsch. The galleons.
There is a very good rigging plan in it to rig ships of that era.
Great work.
 
Steef66 said:
It is good to see that more People dare to use colour on these type of ships. When you start, everybody is concerten and sceptic. But when you finished the colouring it just looks amazing. Good choise to use the white.
Thanks Heinrich to attempt me about this build. Looks amazing.
For the rigging I use the book of Peter Kirsch. The galleons.
There is a very good rigging plan in it to rig ships of that era.
Great work.
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Thank you, I shall follow up on the book and I am nervous about the rigging.
 
Tony H said:
What a difference those patterns make, it's a good looking ship.
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Thank you, I am quite pleased with it so far.
Tudor war ships of the time period were typically quite colourful.

Excerpts from Tudor Warships, Elizabeth I's Navy
 

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For each side of the stern walk placement showing insignia of the Crown, Fleur-de-lis & Tudor Rose are shown below.

Stern Walk 1.png

Unfortunately even though laying them out in order I inexplicably put one pair of the Fleur-de-lis & Tudor Rose in the wrong place, put it down to a momentary lapse in concentration or perhaps good fortune :), see below.
Now I didn't realise this straight away it was only when going to do the other side I twigged, as the pieces are inset the chances of getting them off undamaged was probably nil to none.
As a little extra to give the crowns some depth I added red behind the etching.

Stern Walk 3.jpg


This led me to try and research what was the correct way to show them, interestingly the Amati kit of the same ship actually shows them the same way I put them on.

Amati Stern Walk.png


I wasn't able to find out anything on the royal protocol for showing them together, so I think they can stay as they are and have matched the other side the same.
 
I spent the weekend looking through a few build logs on this forum, amazing work by so many modelers and I am a little embarrassed to show my more down to earth efforts.

The instructions seem to show the etched brass doors stuck on as is, not sure if some outline was drawn in the etching or if it was just the photos showing dark lines.

Door 1.png

I did have original thoughts at the start of the build to make some doors which I thought would have looked a bit better, my indecision and lack of confidence to venture too far from the plans stopped me on this occasion.

So I decided to just paint them and use some nails for door knobs, I think original doors for the period would have had some sort of latch and ring arrangement, again a step to far for me to try and construct something in this scale to fit on the doors as they are.

Door 2.jpgDoor 3.jpg

Ok up close they do look a little like they are just stuck on, but I don't think casual viewers in real life will be critiquing my model with a magnifying glass, I already know where many of the faults are.;)
 
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Richie said:
Fascinating to know there is some documentation that has survived from Mathew Baker the original Revenge builde
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There is only 1 pictorial source, which shows the original ship, and this is in fact only a rough sketch. It is the so called "Smerwick map" which dates from 1580:

Smerwick Revenge [P. Earle Cover].jpg

All the warships, depicted on the map:

Smerwick Map [Bryce Walker] 2 Ausschnitt.jpg

In 1580 the Revenge had only 3 masts, with the mizzen in a position very close to the stern, perhaps a little outside the waterline. The same feature can be seen on the other ships too. There's a small chance that she might have been a four-master in her late days (after the major restauration in 1588). A tapestry designed by Vroom depicts her in her last action in 1591, showing her with 4 masts, but this is not a very strong evidence. It just proves the possibility.
It is evident that the ornaments are greatly exaggerated, especially on the Revenge, not so much on the other ships. In the case of the Revenge, the exaggeration was done on purpose, which can be seen from the fact that it distorts the proportions of the hull (look at the gun ports lying very close to the waterline). In my opinion there is only one reason to show the ship with such exaggerated patterns: at least at this time (1580) the ship could be identified by its patterns and ornaments. The use of only red an white seems to be a simplification, there is written evidence of also green colour.
 
Those decorations really look splendid Richie and the fact that they are not in the same order as those on your plans, is neither here nor there.
 
What I find disconcerting is how little we know of the actual coloration and ornamentation of HMS Revenge, in addition to the controversy over whether or not she had a bonaventure mast. Amati and others had to make up over 90 percent of the color for their model. With so much guesswork, a sailor who sailed the actual ship would not even recognize the model as Revenge. Making a model accurate is literally impossible for old ships.
 
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The bonaventura mast was just in a small time, somewhere between 1550-1600. The reason was that there was no advantage when mounted. It was changed very quick to one mast with 1 lateen and 1 square sail.
The lower gunports where maybe also used to row. Look at my avator
 
DARIVS ARCHITECTVS said:
What I find disconcerting is how little we know of the actual coloration and ornamentation of HMS Revenge, in addition to the controversy over whether or not she had a bonaventure mast. Amati and others had to make up over 90 percent of the color for their model. With so much guesswork, a sailor who sailed the actual ship would not even recognize the model as Revenge. Making a model accurate is literally impossible for old ships.
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Yes totally agree and I imagine the end result of my model ignoring the skills will at best be a representation of the ship with 4 masts, if indeed that's what it did have at one point and I am OK with that.
Just need to see the differences between the kits of Occre and Amati, the finished results while similar do look quite different and could be different ships from the same era.

If we turn the tables and select a current day war ship and get say 5 artists to paint or draw the ship with no criteria set on detail and no digital images, one person will paint it once every 5 years in different scenarios, for example one in port perhaps showing a few other ships, another out to sea and another in a battle exercise etc.
Now during the 25 years the ship may go in for a refit or updates so the will likely look different over the time period, are you still with me.
Lets fast forward 450 years to the year 2471 and ask a modeler to build the ship based on the images in front of them, there is no confirmation which order they are done in either, oh also the data storage systems of today no longer work in the future so any plans of the ship are also lost.
Now we can also add additional paintings or models were done by various artists over the years that never actually saw the original ship, sound familiar, it could be the Revenge story.
I think the end result built will have some resemblance to the original ship but many details will be lacking, any conjecture on specific details is probably going to remain just that conjecture, now ask many modellers to build from the same images and I expect the results will be just as varied with everyone's interpretation different.

My reasoning for going with Occre it was about half the price in Australia of the Amati kit, you can see that the Occre Revenge also shares a few similarities with other kits in Occre range like the Buccaneer so compromises have been made in the design, my overall goal was to see if I could finish building a second ship and could continue with this hobby.
 
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Cirdan said:
There is only 1 pictorial source, which shows the original ship, and this is in fact only a rough sketch. It is the so called "Smerwick map" which dates from 1580:

View attachment 253262

All the warships, depicted on the map:

View attachment 253263

In 1580 the Revenge had only 3 masts, with the mizzen in a position very close to the stern, perhaps a little outside the waterline. The same feature can be seen on the other ships too. There's a small chance that she might have been a four-master in her late days (after the major restauration in 1588). A tapestry designed by Vroom depicts her in her last action in 1591, showing her with 4 masts, but this is not a very strong evidence. It just proves the possibility.
It is evident that the ornaments are greatly exaggerated, especially on the Revenge, not so much on the other ships. In the case of the Revenge, the exaggeration was done on purpose, which can be seen from the fact that it distorts the proportions of the hull (look at the gun ports lying very close to the waterline). In my opinion there is only one reason to show the ship with such exaggerated patterns: at least at this time (1580) the ship could be identified by its patterns and ornaments. The use of only red an white seems to be a simplification, there is written evidence of also green colour.
Click to expand...
Thank you for the description, I had seen the image before but didn't know what it was depicting until now.
Yes Tudor colours of green and white seem to have been quite common.


Smerwick Harbour.jpg


Also this link was interesting showing a few images and description of the Revenge final battle, I used google translate to english.

www.todoababor.es

Combate de Isla Flores. Apresamiento galeón Revenge 1591 | Todo a babor

Esta es la relación, por medio de documentación de la época, del célebre combate de Isla Flores, donde fue apresado el famoso galeón inglés "Revenge".
www.todoababor.es www.todoababor.es
 
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