USS St Louis (C-20) / OIS Debilitación

As I've said in the previous post, I'm back to building 1/600 scale warships (and might have a ruleset that suits them in mind, too): this is the protected cruiser St Louis, not so great, but very white.

Let me explain my prejudice against this particular model: while building and painting her, she fell off the table and was knocked over multiple times, and I had to reinstall the masts at least three or four times before the final coat of varnish was added. 

So the lore behind all of it is that after the class ceased its service in the US Navy, this particular ship was sold to Ortosilia, and became the flagship of the fleet. She was to be renamed OIS Debilitador, but during the ceremony, Prince Arturo of the House of Ortosilia made a mistake, and to cover it up, the ship became Debilitación.

Because I have also built a ship that was designed much later on (and has a strong relation to Hungarian history; people guessing right in the comments below will receive an online pat in the back), I have changed the dates a little, and instead of the late 1890s, the South American naval war would be set after the end of the Great War, so the belligerents could lay their hands on various vessels of the age at a discount. It is a much more glorious fate than being sold and scrapped.

The hull is made of three layers of cardboard, covered by thin cardstock, and the upper structure is two sheets of 1,5mm plasticard. The rest is from various sources, mostly scrap wood and other wooden materials bought at my usual stockist, an RC airplane model shop in downtown Budapest.

I think I have misjudged some proportions as I had no proper blueprint and only worked after photos of the ship and her sisters, and their large scale models.

It took a while to get the color scheme right. I used a mix of VMC German Dark Ochre and VGC Scrofulous Brown for the superstructure and VMC Buff for the deck. The white on the hull took at least five layers to complete. After the first layer, I added a dark brown wash, then drybrushed the superstructure with two brighter tones. The hull received a wet highlight, and some more, until I found it satisfactory.