Wow, this is going to be another one of your little fantastic wonders. 
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Very interesting Tim, A ship going over the rim of the world, the base does look very good. Will be following along for the ride.
Cheers, Si
Wow, this is going to be another one of your little fantastic wonders.
Thanks Si and Jörg, much appreciated!
After the acrylic gloss coat was dry I added some thin squiggles of sea foam to the wake using white enamel. Acrylic paint would have worked just as well, but enamel gave me the flexibility to take it off with paint thinner and redo it if things didn’t come out right!
The ship was attached to the sea with Liquitex Gloss Medium & Varnish applied under the hull and around the water line. This medium is useful as a tough, flexible adhesive, but the thin material levels out as it dries to become completely smooth and clear.
To give the foam around the ship more texture, I made up some “white froth” from the Liquitex medium mixed with some Woodland Scenics Soft Flake Snow.
This was applied around the ship’s hull and at the crests of the waves.
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That looks great Tim. 
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What a wonderful idea. Very creative!! 
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Excellent! Im sincerely going to copy this effect! 
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This is an amazing and very creative project and I’m loving it. Your tips on how to make the waves and base are going to be so useful the next time I display one of my ship models in a water base.
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That looks great Tim.
Excellent! Im sincerely going to copy this effect!
This is an amazing and very creative project and I’m loving it. Your tips on how to make the waves and base are going to be so useful the next time I display one of my ship models in a water base.
Thanks guys, much appreciated!
After the froth mixture dried I applied some more of the Vallejo Water Texture acrylic gloss over the sea to integrate the various materials.
I had initially liked the Vallejo Water Texture acrylic (for gloss), but for some reason the coating gradually flattened to a spotty semi-matte over the following few days. I probably used it incorrectly… 
Anyway, a second overcoating with Behr Fast Drying Polyurethane Gloss brought the shine back again.
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It looks AWESOME Tim! I’ll be using this technique and the products you used for my next sea diorama. Do you have any plans to add crew figures? I love displaying my ship builds in a sea setting but I find locating the appropriate sized figures to be very challenging. I wish that there was a 3-D printer who specialized in naval figures in various scale sizes.
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It looks AWESOME Tim! I’ll be using this technique and the products you used for my next sea diorama. Do you have any plans to add crew figures? I love displaying my ship builds in a sea setting but I find locating the appropriate sized figures to be very challenging. I wish that there was a 3-D printer who specialized in naval figures in various scale sizes.
Thanks Tom, and it seems you read my mind!
The Santa María’s plight was looking pretty frightening so far, but there was something missing…
Terrified sailors!
A crew would definitely amp up the drama of the scene but, not surprisingly, there aren’t a lot of 1/150 scale Spanish sailor figures out there. Somebody at some point may come up with some great 3D printed options, but for now I’ll have to improvise.
Fortunately, there are a ton of model railroad scale people available; I figured these N Scale “Shootin’ Hoops” figures with their dynamic poses could be a good start.
The first was the blond guy in the white shirt and black shoes. The initial plan had been to cut apart and reposition the limbs for customized poses, but the semi-soft plastic of the Woodland Scenics figures doesn’t take glue well, so I just cleaned up the mold lines and repainted him as he was.
The only change on this guy was to turn his head a little and bulk out the shirt and trousers with thickened paint. I also trimmed down the footwear so he could be shown working barefoot – a common practice of European sailors of the period.
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Beyond cool Tim, this project is pure genius. And figures are icing on a toppling cake – if the plastic’s that soft could you boil them for a couple of minutes and then twist the limbs as desired?
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That figure looks very good Tim. As I wind down a build I scour Amazon/Etsy for the correct sized figures for finishing up a build. A model club member once remarked that a sailing ship build that I had done must have been a “ghost ship” since there weren’t any figures on it. After that comment I try to “populate” my ship builds.
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I remember a scene like this when I was studying European history 50 years ago .I always thought a model of the actual event would be fantastic .congratulations ,
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Beyond cool Tim, this project is pure genius. And figures are icing on a toppling cake – if the plastic’s that soft could you boil them for a couple of minutes and then twist the limbs as desired?
I remember a scene like this when I was studying European history 50 years ago. I always thought a model of the actual event would be fantastic. congratulations
Thanks guys! I agree, all but the smallest scale ship models benefit from having a crew. After realizing these figures wouldn’t glue well I did try heat, but after ruining one I just went forward without customizing them at all.
The next sailor was even simpler than the first with no changes other than the new paint job. Not sure how effective it is, but I did give this one a beard to help him look a little less like a hoop-shooting teenager.
The poses were dynamic, but they were not quite exactly what I would have chosen – at the moment these guys look less like 15th century Spanish mariners than 1970s disco dancers!
The last two were better:
The kid dunking the basketball is now a panicked crewman diving from the doomed ship, and the African American defender in the muscle shirt and shorts is now a luckless Spaniard swimming for his life!
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Excellent imagination!!
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Agreed! I’m impressed you managed to use several shades of flesh on each tiny figure. However, an ultra-thin dark reddish-brown wash dropped on the faces (with the figure on its back) and allowed to settle in the depressions will make any sculpting stand out. I use ink in Future/Klear and after drying taking a nearly-dry brush of Klear over the raised bits will return them to their pre-wash colour. It’s only worth doing the faces as humans are pre-programmed to concentrate on the visage and the reflex kicks in on even the tiniest of figures.
Regards,
M
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With the poses for these two, you could see if you could mangle a hand on each one to be able to fix them each of them hanging onto a backstay as the ship pitches down, trying to keep from being thrown off the ship.
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Yeah, they say Columbus made it all the way here on 3 Galleons, but you know how they lie about the gas mileage on those foreign cars.
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You’re doing just fine (what kind of heat did you try? I suggested boiling in water) but I had to laugh, those two guys look like “Ha, ha, ha, ha, stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive” 
(Edit - sorry, I meant this for Tim)
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With the poses for these two, you could see if you could mangle a hand on each one to be able to fix them each of them hanging onto a backstay as the ship pitches down, trying to keep from being thrown off the ship.
Sean and Tim, thanks for the suggestions! Hot water did soften the limbs, but bending them into realistic poses in this tiny scale defeated me. Also, the heat distorted the lovely sculpting on my test figure…
Anyway, they are all painted now, so I’ll test fit the crew aboard this weekend and see what can be done with them as they are. Perhaps holding lines or bracing themselves against the masts?
Or maybe I should just take things in another direction entirely… 
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But not for much longer…
Cheers,
M
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