Hi everyone, I've been a card modeler for years and almost always stuck to Great War aircraft. I saw a few Shipyard builds in the past that were oh so inspiring that I had to give it a go. Of course I had to choose the Bellona as my first ship and promptly figured out that I had bitten off something that was way too large. This project started just over 4 years ago and has been put on hold until now for almost the whole time due to illness in the family. Things are on a even keel once again so I figured I'd dust her off and finish her.
I didn't like the 'planking' that comes with the kit as my first effort had that starved look between bulkheads by only using 2 layers of roughly 100lb stock and my painting would never look like wood. I abandoned the final included planking and replaced it with a rough planking of 1mm board strips , sanded, filled and sealed and then left the card behind except for positioning and scaling. The wood 'planking' is actually very thin strips of cherry wood and the decks are made from 1mm board covered with strips of 'MacTac' dirtied up with a bit of stain. The first couple images are rather poor as my camera at that time was terrible but I bribed my wife to lend me hers for the rest.
I didn't like the 'planking' that comes with the kit as my first effort had that starved look between bulkheads by only using 2 layers of roughly 100lb stock and my painting would never look like wood. I abandoned the final included planking and replaced it with a rough planking of 1mm board strips , sanded, filled and sealed and then left the card behind except for positioning and scaling. The wood 'planking' is actually very thin strips of cherry wood and the decks are made from 1mm board covered with strips of 'MacTac' dirtied up with a bit of stain. The first couple images are rather poor as my camera at that time was terrible but I bribed my wife to lend me hers for the rest.
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