Bandsaw Steve

Wow! Talk about fast progress! That looks great.

Yes. The guy left behind to lead the survivors (I can’t recall his name right now) was a genuine psychopath who, supported by his cronies, established absolute rule and raped and mass-murdered to his sick heart’s content. There was well in excess of a hundred victims. He was obviously not expecting the authorities to catch up with him, but they did, and just in time to prevent a final battle between his gang and the last desperate survivors. He and almost all his followers were executed but (IIRC) two were dropped off on the Australian mainland and permanently banished. This whole sad episode is generally regarded as the first semi-permanent European settlement in Western Australia.

I’ve never been there, but from what I’ve heard that makes you a master of understatement Jeff

Looking good Ray. That rolling sea looks very promising too.

I’m actually sitting in a cafe in Fremantle right now and a large piece of this ship is less than 500m away in the WA shipwreck museum so I was a bit taken aback when I saw ‘Batavia’ crop up here. As I’m sure you know, this is Western Australia’s most famous shipwreck and comes with a truely harrowing story. A Beautiful model and setting, congratulations on this fine work.

Great work mate! There’s a lot of character in that model.

Always enjoy a scratchbuild me!

OK - No one’s said it yet, so I guess I’ll have to do the honours… ’This is the way’ There… done now.

Excellence vs perfection!?!?! I’m generally struggling to get beyond ‘rough-as-guts’

Welcome aboard. Your work looks very accomplished.

Great start to what promises to be a great project.

Yep. Hide it behind the front forks mate! That’s what I’d do. Sooner or later there’s are spoked wheels in my future so I’m watching and learning!

What @Killingholme said.

Great work. Thanks for posting those drawings too - they look great.

Wow! Someone had taken note of something I said. I’m very impressed! When you get going make sure to post a WIP here as I will be most interested to watch progress. Besides, there are heaps of helpful folks here who can offer all kinds of advice.

They are the exact two criteria for a first (and probably any) scratchbuild.

Superb!

Sorry but I respectfully disagree. Scratchbuilding is far more accessible than most people realise. The best time to start is always ‘now’. Your first efforts might be visibly inferior to a kit but as you build expertise that gap will close. I’ve just looked at some plans of HMS Warrior and think she would be a good subject for a first build as long as you don’t want ‘perfection’ and don’t get too bogged down with the rigging.

CARC When you go to your local SMS paint retailer and look for 'NATO Green' and 'NATO Brown' you don't have much luck. SMS appear to not do those two colours. They do however do 'CARC green' and 'CARC brown' both of which look very close. If you then become curious and wonder what 'CARC' means you might google the subject and find out that it's a NATO (or perhaps US Army?) acronym for 'Chemical Agent Resistant Coating' which is - apparently - the technical name for the coatings that modern NATO armour get painted with. Interesting... Let's get some brown and green CARC on this thing! As per my stated 'plan A' above I started the long tedious process of masking out. But - I dunno - they just don't seem to make blue-tack like they used to. This stuff just would not stick down and after 15 minutes or so the words of @Model Mate started ringing in my ears... 'Are you sure you need to mask?' 'Are you sure you need to mask?' 'Are you sure you need to mask?' 'Well maybe not' I started to think. 'But if I am going to try to freehand this thing then, I will definitely need some demarcation guidelines drawn on before I start airbrushing!' I thought. But once the first brown was on I was gaining confidence and thought... well - if there's any mistakes made in the pattern I can just adjust with the final green coat... So to hell with the pencil marks. And from there on I just went a bit nuts. Quite a bit of paint got squirted. After about 2 hectic hours the hull was done. and most of the ancillary pieces had been CARC'd. Soon after, the previous 'Reflective Green' on the turret was then replaced with 'CARC Green' leaving nothing to do except... Remove the very basic masking over the tracks and wheels that I put on a week or so ago... And admire my work... All of which I am very happy with. Note that the wheels are still in 'reflective green' as originally painted a few weeks ago, and so there is still a small colour mismatch between wheels and hull. I'm not concerned because the wheels will be covered with a layer of dust pigmentation for weathering. As for the CARC... to me the colours look bang-on! So - @Model Mate 's outrageous suggestion of not masking proved reasonable after all and saved me a bunch of time. I think that the fact that it worked out OK is due to two major factors: SMS paints really are extremely good and flatter my limited airbrushing skills. This is a very big model so the feathered edge still looks in scale. Just in case anyone has forgotten just how big this is - have a look at the photo below. Well folks, that's another major milestone passed on this project. Not sure what's next; probably some matt varnish followed by more detailing. There's still a fair way to go. pzh2000 Best Regards, Bandsaw Steve

Great project Ray. I’ve just read through the whole thread and have picked up numerous tips for one or two possible future projects. Thanks for that. Steve

Well, that’s something for me to aim for I guess…

Excellent. Nice to see this back. I’m sure we will forgive you if you use 1/350 figures on this. I think Trumpeter makes them? Someone here will know for sure.

Too true…

Great job Ray. Quite inspiring. Looking forward to seeing your work on a steamship.

Still… It is tempting…