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Zvezda Medieval Ship Thomas

Big Jake

Big Jake

Joined
Sep 18, 2022
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I took a break from slapping plastic together after the last mess called Mayflower from Trumpeter. I pulled down the next contestant on The Build Is Right.....

The Zvezda Medieval Ship Thomas. From reading a long post on FineScale Modeler from 2013, the ship is supposed to represent a ship of Henry the VIII's Navy or there abouts. The artwork looks to be mainly Earth tones, but many of the built-up kits have blues/green upper hulls, I'm starting to do entry level research on Henry's Navy.Has any of the members built up the kit yet? Any pitfalls? Any post you can direct me to? Thanks

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This is a color chart on the back page of the instruction booklet, I'll try to translate but I think they are a direct color translation already.

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I'm still hooked on using enamels (old school), one of the colors is "Rubber" it's a really dark brown/black, luckily Testors still make the enamel but only in 1/4' bottles square bottles. If I can't find a match, I'll pick up 4-5 so I have enough to airbrush. I do like the shade of green and the wood finish on this model.

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AndyA said:
as a starting point but try to do your own research. You will probably do a more thorough job than an employee of the model manufacturer.
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Great advice. With today's AI it is pretty easy to find accurate information to make comparisons.

Regarding the painted sails, the ones depicted on the box might be overdone. While it's a common fantasy in modern pictures to show ships with heavily painted sails, the reality was more subtle. Medieval ships generally did not have brightly colored sails, with plain off-white or tan sails being the most common. Ships of the rich and famous often had simple designs such as crosses and other symbols. Sails were made of linen or hemp and treated with tanning agents to help prevent rot and it gave them a tan or yellowish color.

Allan

The painting below by Anthonisz is from circa 1600.
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Big Jake said:
I'm still hooked on using enamels (old school), one of the colors is "Rubber" it's a really dark brown/black, luckily Testors still make the enamel but only in 1/4' bottles square bottles. If I can't find a match, I'll pick up 4-5 so I have enough to airbrush.
Click to expand...
Yes. Testors flat rubber is a paint I have used frequently. It works well for models because black is often too intense for a scale appearance. Fair winds!
 
AllanKP69 said:
Regarding the painted sails, the ones depicted on the box might be overdone. While it's a common fantasy in modern pictures to show ships with heavily painted sails, the reality was more subtle. Medieval ships generally did not have brightly colored sails, with plain off-white or tan sails being the most common. Ships of the rich and famous often had simple designs such as crosses and other symbols. Sails were made of linen or hemp and treated with tanning agents to help prevent rot and it gave them a tan or yellowish color.
Click to expand...
Yes. Colorful box art sells more models. The historical economic reality is that dyes and pigments were very expensive and sails did not last very long. Fair winds!
 
I don't have any book yet on the ship building of this period (YET), bit I was trying to figure out what these protrusions are?

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So we have the ends of deck beams protruding outside the planking. Let's see if I'm understanding the construction correctly. The deck beams were notched to fasten them to ceiling planks. This requires the beams to extend a bit outside the planking since cutting them off shorter would leave a weak joint with little or no wood outside of the notch. This differs from more recent construction where knees are used to fasten deck beams to frames. Fair winds!
 
Got a bit done in the prep stages, added brass rod the mast and gave the deck sections a flat black base coat. I order some pedestals from Amazon to use a mount.

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Historically, this model is of a ship much older than Henry VIII. At least 200 years. Henry VIII died in the mid 1550’s. Vessels of this design were called Cogs. They were in use from about 1200 to 1400. The large ships of Henry VIII’s time were called Carracks and were of completely different design. The famous Mary Rose was a Carrack. There is currently a build log of Mary Rose here on the forum. Look it up and you will see the differences.

Roger
 
Correct, this type of vessel was used both in coastal trading as well as English Warfare. The Hanse Kogge was a type of ship also known as a Cog ship. These ships originated in the 10th century, though became most widely used from the 12th century. Traditional cogs were clinker-built, fitted with a single mast and a square-rigged single sail.

Hanse refers to a medieval association of German cities, which would use cog ships to engage in long distance business on the Baltic sea.
 
Sunday update. Deck sections got their topcoat of Armor Sand, mast seams were removed and i cut off the molded woolings, they never look right, I'll replace with rigging line.

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First 3 of 6 deck sections. There is just enough grain to sand and do a wash effect. I still need to dry brush the hatch combings and dry brush the pathway (worn deck) but so far, so good. I will use a mechanical pencil to darken the caulk lines. The deck wash is water base black paint - 90% distilled water & 10% Paint.

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