Feb 8, 2015

Cruisers


I went to the painting & home decor shop and bought some 1000 grit sandpaper. Proper tools and methods ease working on these ships a lot. I'm getting the knack of it now, so here are a pair of cruisers, Veudeni on the left and Jackewlinese on the right - as I'm not planning to add flags the distinct hull colour was an obvious choice, bright grey/white vs. black. The paint jobs are, as opposed to the first pre-dreadnought, just two or three similar layers over a white basecoat. For the white ships I'm still considering adding a thin wash.


I sort of tried to hinder the modern look by using classic paint schemes, and I have to admit this looks much better than sea gray.



Here's an assembled hull for the 2nd Veudeni ship, the trick for a smooth surface is sanding a lot and adding PVA between each sanding, after two or three times it's going to be really nice. I sanded & PVAd the two pieces separately twice and then a third time when they were glued together. Sounds like a tedious process but besides this, adding superstructures and painting the thing takes very little time. The PVA also acts as a varnish and protects the wood. I didn't even add a finish to the cruisers. This battleship will have a very French and thus a more antique look compared to the ones before it.

13 comments:

  1. This series is getting really interesting and informative. I didn't treat my own little warships this way, but they are probably too small to gain much from it. Your own warships are looking really something.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I was contemplating using a smaller scale (for smaller tables), but concluded that would mean dropping most of the detail. This size is quite optimal as I have the right parts amongst my bits inventory and I have much ease working on the balsa.

      Delete
  2. you are really good at building ships, they are wonderful!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Super nice Man Cave Shipyard Building of ships. The brown deck color looks great.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you, the Man Cave Shipyard is in dire need of a vacuum cleaner as there's saw dust everywhere!

      Delete
  4. Impressive work, Andras. You are a master builder.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Great results and a very interesting project. These models look very similar to my 1/1100 Spanish ships from Houston Ships.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you, your models looks interesting as well. It will be more evident once I build more battleships that these are quite large at a rough scale of 1/600.

      Delete