Question for other ship modelers

[Wear Ship Dave]

So... I've been scratch building an English 50 gunner... Passing the time, I guess...

I'm actually pretty new to modeling ships of this time period.

I was wondering if any of you modelers, who have more experience in this genre, can give me some guidance on colors. How would you characterize your English ship deck color, and your English ship "yellow" bands around the gun ports. (If you know the RGB or CMYK maths, I can work with that).

I'm doing a 1:1000 scratch build of the HMS Leopard and I'm at the point that I need to make color decisions.

I appreciate any advice you guys can offer! Thanks! :beer:

[Volunteer]

The yellow can be straw to ochre. Just about every shade of yellow was used by ships of the period because it was inexpensive to make and obtain. As it aged it faded so a bright new yellow would quickly fade to a dull weathered straw at sea. Ochre yellow was common. The decks were hollystone to an almost cream white in the Royal Navy, but any light tan will work.

[Wear Ship Dave]

The yellow can be straw to ochre. Just about every shade of yellow was used by ships of the period because it was inexpensive to make and obtain. As it aged it faded so a bright new yellow would quickly fade to a dull weathered straw at sea. Ochre yellow was common. The decks were hollystone to an almost cream white in the Royal Navy, but any light tan will work.

That's what I was thinking. It's very helpful to have confirmation!

Many thanks!

[Moideeb]

Hi Dave,

Interesting ship to choose to build. What's your reasoning for building the leopard? Also you say it's a scratch build, how are you making the hull?

I remember the Leopord from the O'Brian novel where the hit an iceberg and sank. I also seem to recall that in reall life she fired at an American ship to get deserters back and almost sent Britain and the United States at war with each other.

Would also love to see some pictures of your progress. Fashioning everything from scratch is a bit to advanced for me at the moment.

[Berthier]

Yes Dave we need pictures!

[Wear Ship Dave]

I have four blog entries, with tons of photos.

You can find the first entry here: http://www.sailsofglory.org/entry.php?6-My-attempt-at-scratch-building-HMS-Leopard

When you reach the bottom of the page, clicking the "Next" will take you to the next entry.

As for why the HMS Leopard... Partly because I was able to find pretty detailed plans, and I also remember it from the O'Brian novels.

[Wear Ship Dave]

I just added Entry #5 on my Blog. http://www.sailsofglory.org/entry.php?10-Scratch-Building-HMS-Leopard-Part-5