Pegasus Nautilus 1/144

[billn53]

Hello everybody! I got back into modeling just over a year ago after a very long absence. Since then, I've been building airplanes and posting in the aircraft section, but my interests also include nautical subjects. My local IPMS group has a show coming up in late August, and I looked through my stash for something different to enter into the contest. Here's what I found:

 

I also happened to have a few aftermarket items tucked away in my box:

 

 

 

Planning out my approach, I realized there are four main sub-projects I must complete more or less concurrently. These are: 1) Assembling the Pegasus kit, 2) Painting, 3) Lighting, and 4) Constructing a base.

 

I began work a couple of weeks ago and am ready to show my progress to date. I'll cover my work in each of the four areas listed above.

 

First, kit construction. This begins with building the "Grand Salon", which will be visible through the large windows on either side of the ship. My first task was to open up the overhead panel for the LED lights that I will be installing:

 

    

 

Building the salon was straightforward. Mostly, it was an exercise in painting. Here are some pics. Unfortunately, most of the details will likely not be visible through the window glazing 😞

 

 

 

A few notes for reference: The wood effect was achieved using oils (a new experience for me). The large rug was printed on paper from an image found on the web. The globe was originally molded as a single piece... I carefully cut / ground out the globe from it's frame, and replaced it with a 5mm bead taken from a cheap necklace. The figures are N-scale from Preiser.

 

Detail pics of the salon:

 

 

 

    

 

   

 

 

 

The ParaGrafix photoetch includes a basic bridge area, which I plan to install even though the ability to see this after assembly will be almost nil. The ship's wheels in the pic below are 3D printed. I forget where I found those!

 

 

 

That's pretty much where I am on the assembly sub-project. Moving on to painting, I intend to use an iron-based rust product described in Dr Faust's YouTube building videos ( https://youtu.be/qrnzRvmXWO4

 ). But, the main deck has what I presume is wood decking, which I don't want to rust up. I thought it best to paint the deck and mask off the wood sections prior to assembly. For this, I sprayed a coat of raw umber acrylic, followed by a black Flory wash:

 

 

Here it is after removing the excess wash. I quite like the result of the raw umber, and may use that as my base coat for the sub as a whole, prior to rusting.

 

 

 

Lighting. This is something entirely new to me! Fortunately, Tirydium Models ( https://www.tirydiummodels.co.uk/ )sells an excellent lighting kit for the Nautilus. Unlike other lighting kits I've seen, which require soldering in resisters, etc., this one is entirely plug-and-play! Hat's off to Warren of Tirydium Models for doing this. (BTW, Warren posts on Britmodeller using the handle "Madmonk")

 

The lighting for the salon uses four warm-white LEDs that shine through the PE grates in the overhead panel:

 

 

 

The result, in general, looks good, but I found the corners of the salon to be a bit too dark:

 

 

 

I fixed this by breaking out my soldering iron and adding a couple more LEDs to cover the corners (not shown).

 

There are also four exterior spotlights, two on either side of the salon's windows. Here are how I installed those. First, I cut out four triangular mounts, which I drilled to accommodate the LEDs:

 

 

 

I cut access holes into the sides of the hull, beneath the angular fairing that runs fore and aft:

 

 

 

Perfect:

 

 

 

There is also a micro-LED in the Tirydium kit, which I decided to use to light the fore deck searchlight. Unfortunately, the kit's searchlight is a solid piece of plastic. I scratch built a substitute using plastic tubing and part of an aircraft fuel tank I found in my spares box:

 

 

 

For the lens, I used Bondic's clear, UV-activated acrylic gel. This stuff is great! I've used it to model aircraft navigation lights, instrument panel glass, even to glue canopies in place.

 

 

 

Success!

 

   

 

That's as far as I've gotten on the lighting sub-project. Last but not least, the base. The Pegasus base is unique, and consists of a giant squid rising out of a hole in the ocean floor. I intend to use the kit base as my starting point, but mount it on a large rectangular box that will hold the battery and switch for the lighting. On the top of the box, I intend to build up a rocky sea bottom using select pieces of BBQ lava rock mounted on a foam/plaster seabed. This will most certainly be heavy, so the base's box must be sturdy. I found a bamboo silverware tray that will work perfectly after turning it upside-down. The partitions for the dinnerware will stiffen the box and prevent it from flexing under the weight of the rocks. Anyway, that's my plan. 

 

Not too much to show so far...

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

Anyway, you get the idea.

 

Overall, I think I'm making good progress and everything seems to be on track to have this finished in time for the show. I will be traveling between now and then, so I don't have as much modeling time as the calendar would suggest. Tomorrow I fly out to California for a week-long business trip, so my next update won't be for a while.

 

Thanks for viewing, I hope you've found this interesting!

 

 

 

Edited June 17, 2018 by billn53

[Brundledonk]

This is fantastic and I for one am very interested my friend. Love what you have done with the salon and the look you have achieved is perfect it really captures the period feel and the figures are just the cherry on top. Definitley following along for the duration, this is proper eye candy

 

Pete

[Martian]

A wonderful start, I'm hooked already!

 

Martian 👽

[colin]

Fantastic work. unfortunatley when the glass go's on theres not a lot you can see in there, even with lighting, I found out with mine.

[billn53]

12 minutes ago, colin said:

Fantastic work. unfortunatley when the glass go's on theres not a lot you can see in there, even with lighting, I found out with mine.

So I’ve heard. But I couldn’t resist the details. At least I have a big window (even if it’s hard to see through), unlike all those tank modelers in the armor forum lol!

[whitestar12chris]

Watching with great interest lovely job.

 

All the best Chris

[beefy66]

This looks great all the small details

 

beefy

[robgizlu]

Loving it and definitely that little bit different.

Rob

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

Love it! Disney's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was my favourite movie as a child. Jules Verne was an inspired writer and the whole notion of the Nautilus is romantic. I really like what you're doing here and irrespective of how good the view through the salon windows ends up being, it just wouldn't be the Nautilus without knowing the salon was in there.

[Martian]

Completely charmed by this.

 

Enthralled of Mars 👽

[Mr T]

Really impressive work on the saloon and I look forward to seeing the completed model. I can still remember seeing the Disney film in the early sixties when I was about seven and loved the Nautilus 

[dnl42]

Oh wow! This is fabulous!

 

Not sure I can resist adding the kit and PE to my stash!

[billn53]

Well, I just got back last night from a week in California (business, unfortunately) and today I put some time in on my Nautilus.

 

This morning was spent working on the painting sub-project. I intend to get as much painted as I can before doing the final assembly. There is a bunch of fragile PE to add later on, and the less handling I need after the PE is on, the better. First step was to prime all of the exterior parts with Stynylrez black primer.  I will follow that up with a base coat of raw umber acrylic, applied using the black-basing method to add variation to the surface. I expect that will become moot as soon as I do the rust weathering, but we'll see...

 

 

 

My other accomplishment today was to settle on exactly how I was going to fix the submarine hull to the squid base. I decided to pin the two together. So, after careful measurement and marking, I drilled holes in the appropriate tentacles and inserted some soft steel pins:

 

 

 

Which miraculously matched up with the holes I drilled in the lower hull piece:

 

 

 

I also came to a decision on how to route the lighting wires from the sub to the base. I seriously considered making a hollow tentacle from brass tubing to route the wires. But I finally decided that approach had a good chance of causing more problems than it solved, so instead I will route the wires through the bottom of the hull and hide them on the backside of one of the tentacles.

 

 Lastly, I tried vacuforming a set of side widows in the hope they would be more clear than the kit parts (which, although very clear, are thick enough to refract the light passing through them and degrade the view of the salon's interior). The test pieces were certainly clearer, but unfortunately, the thinnest clear stock I have is 0.020-inch, which couldn't handle some of the sharp corners on the window glazing. I've ordered thinner (0.010-inch) material, but I guess the odds to be less than 50-50 that the vacuform approach will work out.

 

Tomorrow I'll spray the main color coat on the hull pieces, and hopefully get a few hours in working on the ocean bottom for the base. If I have time, I may even start painting my squid.

 

 Stay tuned!

 

Edited June 24, 2018 by billn53

[mick]

great work

[billn53]

I was up bright and early this Sunday morning, and after my obligatory coffee I got back to work.

 

First thing I did was to do the blackbasing for my base coat of raw umber. It's quite dark over the back primer, and photos don't show very well, but here's one that I hope highlights the effect:

 

 

 

Next up was to get serious about my base. Using 1/2 inch high-density foam cut to fit my wood support, I outlined the kit's squid hole and cut out the foam to shape. Obviously, some filler will be eventually be needed to make the transition seamless:

 

    

 

 

 

For the seabed, I found this product at my local aquarium shop. Basically, it's a bunch of sand, grit, and pebbles glued onto a flexible sheet. Hopefully, I will be able to easily cut it to shape and use some kind of adhesive to glue it to the foam.

 

   

 

I also bought a bag of lava rock (for outdoor grills) and a few larger rocks from the aquarium store. My master plan is to sort through the rocks and find some that I can insert into the foam/sand map to create a seascape. Fortunately, lava rock isn't very dense (as rocks go), but the base will still be pretty hefty so it's a good thing my wood support is sturdy!

 

 

 

Here's a preview of what I have in mind:

 

 

That's all for now!

Edited June 24, 2018 by billn53

[billn53]

It's time for another update. The past couple of evenings I've been having fun painting up Mr. Squid. For research, I looked at dozens of photos of squid, octopuses, and cuttlefish. My conclusion was that I could pretty much paint my squid however I wanted, there being so much variety in real life.

 

On to the pics!

 

First, I primed everything in white:

 

 

 

Then, after a few hours in the paint booth (so far, I've focused on the squid's body -- tentacles are only roughed in with a base coat), this is where I am at:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In case you're wondering about my squid's eye, I found a website specializing in glass eyes for various animals (glasseyes.com). I selected an eye with enlongated pupil because it looks more sinister to me than  a round pupil. The glass eye is much more realistic (and easier) than trying to paint a realistic eyeball.

 

I still have lots of squid painting to do... finish off the tentacles, detail up the suckers and mouth area, etc. I'll post again when my squid is complete.

 

 

 

 

Edited June 27, 2018 by billn53

[beefy66]

Great job so far and the eye ball is so creepy keep thinking it is going to blink anytime soon. 

 

beefy

[billn53]

Tentacles are painted, all that's left for the squid is to paint the beak, glue on the tentacles & fill in the seams where the tentacles meet the body. Then final touch-up painting.

 

 

 

 

For reference, here are a couple of pics of the real thing!

 

    

[billn53]

I'm calling the squid done!

 

Painted up the squid's beak and surrounding area. I used artist's glazing medium to give the flesh a translucent effect. I think it turned out looking very realistic.

 

 

 

I then added the tentacles a few at a time, puttying and painting over the seams as I went along:

 

 

 

 

I next drilled out a hole for the LED wiring to pass through the squid's body and into the base below. The hole is between the uppermost two tentacles, and you'd have to look for it to notice it.

 

 

The colossal devil-fish, in all her glory!

 

 

 

I'm leaving Saturday on another trip, so my next update won't be until after I return.

 

Thanks for viewing!

 

 

Edited June 29, 2018 by billn53

[billn53]

I just got back home yesterday and began working on the base for my Nautilus display. As you may recall, my base design consists of a wooden box on which the kit's squid-hole will be mounted:

 

 

The surrounding sea floor is going to be high-density foam covered with a roll-on sheet of grit and rocks that I picked up from my local pet store:

 

   

 

On top of that, I will mount various lava rocks to create a dramatic, underwater seascape. Something like this:

 

 

That's where I was before I left for my trip. Now, for today's progress report, and it isn't pretty 😞

 

With the foam board dry-fitted in place, I created a template for my pet store layer of grit:

 

 

A test fit shows promise!

 

 

The next step was to glue down both the high-density foam and the pet store grit layer. This is where I ran into my problem. My research on the web led me to believe that contact (rubber) cement would be the best product for gluing the foam board. Unfortunately, soon after applying my layer of contact cement to the foam, I noticed that the foam was dissolving away! I quickly put the foam in place on the box, and proceeded to glue down the grit layer. But the foam continued to dissolve, and the rubbery backing for the grit layer insisted on curling  up instead of adhering to the foam. Here's an example of the problem:

 

 

Rather than tear everything apart, I decided to weigh down everything (thankfully, I have a big bag of lava rock) and hope for the best. 

 

 

 

I'll take stock tomorrow and decide if I need to start over or not. Wish me luck!

 

Meanwhile, I have a submarine to finish....

 

 

 

 

Edited July 4, 2018 by billn53

[colin]

Just watch out for the squids tentacles when the Nautilus is in place, the ones supporting the rear started to sink down over time with mine.

[CarlR]

excellent work - you're making me consider building this kit too... (in addition to all the others I'm going to build)!

[billn53]

First off, many thanks to the folks in the maritime chat forum who advised me to use PVA wood glue for foam board. As you will see below, that did the trick for me!

 

But first, let's re-wind to when I removed the rocks I was using to weigh down my seabed.  The combination of melting foam and heavy rocks metamorphosed my level surface into an undulating seabed. Although serendipitous, I decided it didn't look half bad! (If anyone asks, I'll swear I planned it that way LOL!)

 

 

 

There were large sections, especially around the corners, where the uppermost layer of pet store grit hadn't adhered to the foam. That's where the PVA wood glue came to the rescue. After the PVA had dried, I then dressed up the edges using hardware store plastic wood.:

 

 

 

Also from the hardware store, I sprayed everything with sand-textured brown rattlecan paint, followed by drybrushing various shades of reddish brown to match the shade of my lava rocks. Here's the final result:

 

 

 

Here's a couple "beauty shots" of my squid in his (her?) natural environment:

 

 

 

 

 

In the above pics, the large rocks are simply sitting on the bottom. My plan is to somehow cut recesses in the foam layer (or what's left of it) so it appears the rocks are rising out of the seabed. Hopefully, I'll be able to make the large rocks removable, to make transporting the display easier.

 

That's today's update. Soon I will resume work on the Nautilus itself. Stay tuned!

[robgizlu]

Nice  paint job on the Mollusc  - very realistic

Rob

[billn53]

Good day, everybody! This post finishes up work on my base (except for a few 'bling' items, to be added at the very end), and resumes work on the Nautilus sub itself. I expect everyone following is tired of seeing pics of my squid and base, but bear with me a wee bit longer and then we'll get on to more interesting items.

 

As I've mentioned, the base will include a few rocks for dramatic effect. I have three large lava rocks (my "three amigos"), plus a select set of baby rocks. All of these needed to be painted and weathered to match the color palette of the base.

 

 

 

I want the three large rocks to be removable, to make transporting the display easier. To accomplish this, I cut openings in my seabed and used a combination of epoxy gel and milliput to fill in the recess, using the rocks as molds (properly protected with plastic wrap).

 

 

 

Here is the base, sans rocks:

 

 

And with everything in place (small rocks have been added with a glue gun, squid isn't permanently fixed yet):

 

 

Now, back to sub building!

 

The grand salon is finished, and lighting assembled & tested, so it's nearly time to get all the interior items in place and close up the hull. Before I can do that, the side windows need to be installed. A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I had ordered some thin stock clear plastic sheet, so that I could vacuform a set of windows in the hope they might better show details of the grand salon. Well, the plastic has arrived and yesterday I tried vacuforming. That's when another near disaster struck!

 

In my haste, I used one of the kit's window pieces as the master for my vacuforming experiment. Unfortunately, all I succeeded in accomplishing was to melt the kit piece into an ugly lump. Arrrggghhh!!! Now I had only one good window for a sub that needs two. I had no choice but to figure out a way to vacuform acceptable windows. So, the first thing I did was to cast a resin master using my remaining good window (something I should have done to start with). Here's a pic showing the good & damaged kit windows, and the resin master:

 

 

 

My first try using my resin master revealed another problem: the vacuformed piece didn't conform to the sharp transition between the octagonal center section and the window sections on either side. So, as an experiment, I drilled small holes in the mold in the hope that they would help "pull" the heated plastic into the difficult corner.

 

 

 

Surprisingly, this actually worked much better! In the end I was able to pull a couple of good vacuform windows, and proceeded to mask off the window framing using vinyl masks from Aztek Dummy:

 

 

 

 

(note that I used the resin master to support the near-paper-thin clear plastic during the masking process)

 

After both window pieces were masked, I carefully tacked them into place using super-thin CA, then followed up on the back side with a generous amount of clear epoxy.

 

 

 

That's about it for this progress report. Next task is to putty the seam between the hull and window (to prevent light leaks), then airbrush the window framing to blend in with the surrounding hull.

 

 

 

Edited July 8, 2018 by billn53