Works pretty well to give a horse (real, not wooden) a nice silky coat too…
Cheers,
M
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Best method for getting an authentic wooden finish.
[/quote]Works pretty well to give a horse (real, not wooden) a nice silky coat too…
Yes, this method is super easy and works for other modelling applications too, like my Feral Cat –
I actually learned it from a friend who used it to paint his WWI aircraft propellers!
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Hi Tim, Excellent job on the wood effect, the oil washes really bring out the detail, and give it the feel of real wood, picks out the caulking between the planks very nicely.
Cheers, Si
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Tim, I think that it’s looking great! I tried your oil paint method on the Revell Pinta that I’m currently building and the hull turned out fantastic. Best method for getting an authentic wooden finish.
Tom S.
Thanks Tom! I’m glad to hear that someone else is making use of the technique. One of my favorite aspects of this hobby is how we learn from each other!
Hi Tim, Excellent job on the wood effect, the oil washes really bring out the detail, and give it the feel of real wood, picks out the caulking between the planks very nicely.
Cheers, Si
Thanks Si, much appreciated. On to the rigging!
Given the simplicity of the model, I decided to keep the rigging basic as well.
I started with the standing rigging – that is, the fixed lines that kept the mast from falling over. Using tan polyester sewing thread, I attached the twin forestays that kept the mast from tipping backward.
Next came the backstays that kept the mast from falling forward. I had forgotten to add the anchor point for them on the aft deck, so I cobbled one up from scrap plastic. I’ll paint it later. Finally, the six shrouds that kept the mast from falling to either side were tied to the previously installed shroud boards on the inner sides of the bulwarks. These lines had to be pulled into position with some tension to get them straight, so I was glad I’d replaced the brittle kit resin shroud board parts with more resilient plastic!
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"I slathered artist’s oil paint, in this case Grumbacher Raw Umber right out of the tube, all over that neat acrylic paint job. "
Did you apply the oil over a matte finish, or did you use a gloss-coat first. You get different results with the different finishes.
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The oil was applied over the matte finish just as it came out of the Tamiya bottle. I find the filter effect on acrylic colors is most pronounced over lusterless surfaces, and the oil glaze gives them a slight sheen.
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Nice simple strait forward rig, looks very seamanlike. were the shrouds turned into ratlines, or did Roman sailors have climb the ropes or shin up the mast for sail handling?
It is raely starting to come to life.
Cheers, Si
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Nice simple strait forward rig, looks very seamanlike. were the shrouds turned into ratlines, or did Roman sailors have climb the ropes or shin up the mast for sail handling?
It is raely starting to come to life.
Cheers, Si
Thanks Si! Ancient depictions don’t show the shrouds as ratlines, but none seem to show ladders either. There must have been some means for sailors to shimmy up as needed, but who knows what? I’ll just embrace the mystery and move on!
Next up was the running rigging used to control the sails.
The topping lifts are the lines from the ends of the yard to the top of the mast. I really should have included downhaul lines from the masthead as well, but I’m going for a representational rather than a comprehensive presentation so only the most prominent lines are being installed.
The braces from the ends of the yard were secured to the tie posts on the stern deck.
Braces were also added to the yard on the artemon mast at the bow and attached to the tie posts forward – which pretty much completes the rigging. I don’t know if this was true in Roman times, but 19th Century ships took down and stowed away sails and much of the rigging if they spent any time in port to limit weather wear on them. My little corbita will be depicted as in port, so this minimalist rigging depiction might just be appropriate!
To liven things up and add a little more detail, I glued coiled “ropes” below the tie posts to suggest the excess lengths of the brace lines. These coils are simply thread wrapped around a paintbrush and fixed into shape with a drop of super glue. To keep them looking casual I deliberately made them a bit loose and uneven. They were then lightly secured to the deck with white glue. I also added another smaller coil at the winch base to camouflage that ugly little breakthrough in the deck there that I’d (somewhat) repaired earlier.
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I understand that if you see (photos) of such ships tied up alongside but with the sails unfurled and hanging limp the sails are being dried (prior to being stowed away).
Regards,
M
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Tim, beautiful work on this lil’ basket! You make it look so easy to make a gem outta a “character.”
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Tim, beautiful work on this lil’ basket! You make it look so easy to make a gem outta a “character.”
Thanks Fred for your kind words, but I have actually made this build harder than it needed to be!
With construction of the ship mostly done, my eye still keeps going back to that less than perfectly repaired deck. It isn’t a big deal, but it annoys me every time I see it because it is entirely my fault for rushing things and not taking proper care…
Anyway, covering up the offending spot makes the most sense at this point, so I’ll put a couple of items of unsecured cargo there.
Since the detail on the N-scale 3D printed box and barrel is a little mushy, I made a tarp to cover them out of facial tissue soaked with water and a little white glue.
With the tarp painted and a couple of Z-scale casks added, my mistake is now hidden!
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Your “cargo” looks great Tim! This whole project, challenging as it was, is going to make a fine display piece on your shelf.
Tom S.
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Good morning Tim.
What a challenging, unusual project.
You have conjured up a piece of jewelry out of the little chubby ship.
Bravo. 
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Nice job, now it just needs to be sitting next to a trireme to show how tiny they really were. HA HA Wayne
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Excellent job Tim, the neatly coiled down ropes, very seaman like. The deck cargo, with the tarp very effective.
Cheers, Si
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Tim this is a real gem, you’ve done such a great job & I love it. I’d just mention that (as far as I know) the Romans hadn’t invented hooped barrels, their primary carrier was the amphora for all liquids. I very much doubt any manufacturer makes amphorae at all, let alone in this scale, so you might just want to extend the tarp over the barrels for authenticity.
You might also be interested that in a British series (“Time Team”) broadcast at least a decade ago, they featured a Roman flat-bottomed freight-barge unearthed in the Netherlands which had a cabin similar to the one in your ship, which had a lockable door to prevent theft of who-knows-what from inside. Just suggesting yours might have had closed doors too.
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Tim this is a real gem, you’ve done such a great job & I love it. I’d just mention that (as far as I know) the Romans hadn’t invented hooped barrels, their primary carrier was the amphora for all liquids. I very much doubt any manufacturer makes amphorae at all, let alone in this scale, so you might just want to extend the tarp over the barrels for authenticity.
Thank you so much for your thoughts, Tim, especially since I have such respect for your own fine modelling work! You are right about the amphorae - I was able to find some aftermarket pieces, but not in this small scale 
. As for the barrels, I too had my doubts, but the Romans did use something at least similar as in this 3rd Century bas-relief:
…so I figured I could justify the casks ‒ as long as nobody looked too closely!
… Roman flat-bottomed freight-barge … had a cabin similar to the one in your ship, which had a lockable door to prevent theft of who-knows-what from inside. Just suggesting yours might have had closed doors too.
As for the cabin door, I guess my corbita’s captain is waiting for the crew to stow the deck cargo below before buttoning things up properly. Hope nobody rips him off…!
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They’re not a problem, wooden casks were in use from at least the mid-fourth century B.C. While they co-existed with Amphorae for many centuries, they had the advantages of being capable of being made in much larger capacities and could be re-used, offsetting the higher manufacturing costs. Like any other wooden items from the Roman era survival depends on favourable conditions, usually wet anaerobic contexts. In 2008 remains of three large barrels were found in Reims where they had ended their working lives (about quarter of a century by some estimates) as Water Butts. Tthey were covered in brands and other marks from both their construction and the phases of re-use. The staves were around two meters long and the capacities of around 1,000 to 1,200 litres, while amphorae typically contain less than a half-ton of material, often around the 110lb mark. The Romans had a standard volume measure known as the “Amphora Quadrantal”, equivalent to one cubic Roman foot, approximately 26 litres, but capacities of actual amphorae vary greatly. Amphorae (at least those for olive oil) could not be re-used and gave ancient civilisations the equivalent of contemporary “plastic pollution”: the “Monte Testaccio” in Rome is a 35m high hill, around a kilometre round its base and containing (mostly) fragments of an estimated 53 million amphorae…
I still have a partial Roman amphora handle I found in my youth on the beach below the slip-face of an eroding Roman fort.
Cheers,
M
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