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  1. Scratch Building HMS Leopard Part 6

    Painting and Detailing, continued

    I didn't have a lot of time to spend today, so a small update this evening.

    I began with the yellow bands. I did them free hand... Working in this scale, I suddenly realize that my hands aren't as steady as I thought they were! But these are passable. I've intentionally left the rear quarter of the ship for now. I'm still contemplating how I want to do the windows, so I'm keeping my options open for now.

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  2. Scratch Building HMS Leopard Part 5

    Initial Painting and The Cannon Foundry

    Today, I gave the ship some color. I started with three coats of acrylic floor finish to seal the balsa a little. Then a couple coats of black on the hull, a light tan on the decks, and a medium brown on the inside of the rails. I cut some hatch covers/grates from card stock and glued them in place, giving them the medium brown color.

    I still need to add the yellow bands on the hull, maybe tomorrow.

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    Updated 09-17-2013 at 20:17 by Wear Ship Dave

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  3. Scratch Building HMS Leopard Part 4

    Adding the Rail and some Detail

    I had a few minutes to spare this afternoon. I wasn't liking the strip of card stock that I added to the bow of the ship. It was too square... So I put a new blade into the X-Acto knife and went to work. (I wanted a REALLY sharp blade)

    Very important to draw the blade through the paper here, let the edge of the blade "saw" through it on a microscopic level. If you try to just push the blade through the paper, it will tear ...

    Updated 09-16-2013 at 22:34 by Wear Ship Dave

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  4. Scratch building HMS Leopard, Part 3

    Hull Construction
    I started by choosing a couple of points that I could precisely locate that also passed through all of the decks I am using for reference.

    The purpose? To align the decks correctly, one above the next.

    Points chosen, I used a basic hat pin to pierce each deck in the correct location. You'll see that I have a lump of modeling clay underneath my deck shape. This supports the card stock shape and makes it much easier to push the pin through ...
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  5. Scratch building HMS Leopard, Part 2

    Ok, so we have our ship selected and plans acquired. Now we have to convert the plans into something that we can use.

    First step is to turn the top down half view of the decks into a full view.

    Simple as cloning the layer and then flipping it to get a mirror image and then combining them in PhotoShop...

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    Next, I sized it to fit on an 8.5x11 sheet of paper and printed it out.

    Why you ask? ...

    Updated 09-13-2013 at 15:57 by Wear Ship Dave

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