Black Seas L'Orient build

[Ray Rivers]

I have pretty much painted every era I have any interest in during my 40+ years in this hobby with one exception: the Age of Sail. I never took the plunge because the ships used for this era were always too small for me. However, with the release of Warlord Games Black Seas and ships at 1/700th scale, looks like I have finally gotten an opportunity to tackle this one last interest.

So... I jumped in with both feet and bought the L'Orient and Victory 1st Rate ships of the line. I decided to try the L'Orient first.

Here is a (rather poor) photo of the basic hull (4 and 1/4 inches long) with the bowsprit attached and the masts:



Overall, the hull is gorgeous and filled with great detail. I noticed though that there was a lack of attachment points for the rigging, especially back stays for the masts. The Dolphin Striker (the vertical spar in the middle of the bowsprit) was also a bit short. All the masts were in fairly poor condition with lots of twists and bends that needed to be straightened out. The bowsprit itself was a bit@h to attach and it took me a while to do a decent job.

After I did a fair job of straightening out the masts I found that the entry points into the hull were too large. I drilled holes into these areas and then tapered the masts so they can be positioned on the ship without falling. I built a standard base which consists of card and a thin aluminum sheet which prevents the base from warping. After attaching the hull to the base I decided the base was too long and shorted it. I then applied milliput and tried to give a basic rolling ocean effect.

Here is what it looks like:



Before I put the base (5 inches long) and hull together I also added 2 attachment points for the masts back stays. I did this by placing the mast on the hull, placing the ratlines, and then noting where the ratlines ended on the planking to show me where to add the attachment points. To do this I drilled two holes for each mast and then inserted small pieces of sewing needles. I also removed the dolphin striker and replaced it with a longer piece of rod.

This photo indicates the modifications:



At this point I need to do some work on the milliput ocean which will be mainly sanding. I think I may have gone too high with the waves and so I will lower them a bit and also the little bits and bobs I added need to be flattened a bit more as they are only intended to break up the large flat surfaces. I intend to use some water effects where the water meets the hull but that will be one of the last things I do. So after some sanding, I will be able to get down and do some painting. *joy*

We'll see how it comes out. I don't have huge expectations, but I am excited about the project. I really like the model.

Not sure when I will update the thread. Probably after painting the hull.

Cheers!

[Ray Rivers]

So I realized with such a big project, I needed to go more step by step.

The next thing I did was take a scalpel and sand paper and try to improve the milliput base a bit. What I wanted was to lower the waves some and to blend the blotches I pasted on to break up the large open areas. Here is the result:



It came out ... well, more or less. Not going to worry about the base at this time. It will need some more work later.

I then primed the model white and gave the base a very washy dark blue. I used Foundry Deep Blue Shade which is equivalent to Citadel Kantor Blue. Here is the result:



So the base is looking pretty poor at the moment but I'm not going to worry about it. I did manage to give the model a very light base coat which was my major goal. Unlike the frigates and brigs that I have seen, this ship's details are not so pronounced. So for example, the deck planking is not nearly as clearly molded as the plastic models.

With that said, I can now start painting the actual model and I will tackle that deck planking first and see how it comes out.

Till next time...

[Shahbahraz]

Nice start, I shall be watching this one with interest.

[Malamute]

Very interesting. I've never painted anything like this either, so very keen to see how it develops. Keep at it Ray.

[Ray Rivers]

Thanks for dropping by, Nick!

I haven't tried them before either so who knows how it will turn out! 

[Captain Blood]

Good work so far Ray. Watching with interest. These are quite appealing I must admit.

[Ray Rivers]

Hi Richard! Thanks.

So... before painting the deck I tried out a few colors. Whenever I'm doing a new project I always use a test mini to try out my colors. Here's what that looks like:



In that photo you can see I tried a number of ways to do the sea. One was with paper... what a disaster! One was with silicon, which wasn't so bad but it was way to shiny so I painted over it and it came out okay. The last was the milliput attempt and I decided to go with that.

Dunno... maybe I should get rid of the miliput and go with the silicon. Any opinions?

What you also see is how I decided to do my decking. The front of the model was painted with Citadel Ushabti Bone and then washed with Agrax Earthshade. It came out really great, but my test model has far deeper groves than the L'Orient, so it won't look the same and have a lot less detail.

To try to get as much of the detail to pop as possible, I first washed the deck twice with Ushanti Bone to get some color into the recesses, but not fill them. I then dry brushed the deck to give a good solid color.

So anyway, last night I spent a few hours painting up the top deck. Here is what it looks like:



Wow! That took a lot of time! Tons of stuff to paint nice and tidy. The next step will be to wash the entire thing in Agrax Earthshade. We'll see how that turns out...

[Shahbahraz]

Still watching with interest. Looking like a good start.

[Ray Rivers]

Still watching with interest. Looking like a good start.

Thanks. Your interest is appreciated. 

[SteveBurt]

I think the silicone looks much better - surely shininess is an advantage for water?
I do my sea bases by painting green/blue then putting artists acrylic texture medium over the top. This goes on milky but dries clear

[Ray Rivers]

I think the silicone looks much better - surely shininess is an advantage for water?
I do my sea bases by painting green/blue then putting artists acrylic texture medium over the top. This goes on milky but dries clear

Yep... I'm tending to think this is the way to go.

Thanks for your recommendation!

[Malamute]

Excellent, I agree about the sea bases go with SteveBurts suggestion.

[Ray Rivers]

Okay...

So here is an incredibly bad photo (way to dark) of the finished top deck. 



I still need to mount and paint the ships boats covering the open decking but that will wait until another day. I plastered the whole thing with Agrax Earthshade and sure enough in spots it didn't come out very well. So I had to do a bit of touch up but in the end that was the best I could do to get as much detail on the decking. I then highlighted the equipment and painted the inner bulwarks Foundry blue and dark blue. The cannons got a touch of German gray and then I took a quick sweep around everything with black.

With such a horrible photo, its hard to see what it really looks like... oh well.  The picture was taken at night so... hopefully soon I will be able to get a better one on, but I wanted to keep working and it looks like the next step will be removing the ship from the base. Damn I hope I don't damage the ship.

Gotta keep moving forward...

[Ray Rivers]

Successfully rebased!

Began work on the hull.

[Shahbahraz]

Excellent. I reckon this is going very well. Personally I would have been tempted to go back and highlight the decking. possibly with a very light drybrush to pick out the details, but it is looking very good.