A Pulpish Submersible (New Photo, 17 October!)

[Wirelizard]

In the same order from Tobsen as the Seagull speedboat I posted about a few weeks back was one of his excellent little submersibles, which he calls the "Globo".



It comes with the ocean-floor "flying" base; instead of the length of plastic tubing that comes with the kit, I used a length of wire paperclip as a support, so mine swims slightly higher off the bottom than the example on Tobsen's website; I also added five of the optional portholes to the front of mine, three across the 'canopy and two below it.

Anything in contact with salt water starts to weather almost instantly, so I didn't want this to be a pristine sub. The base coat is a metallic gunmetal, then a black ink wash, then the white accent stripe, then a reddish rusty wash over the whole thing, and some extra rusty accents in some places. The tailfins are white and blue, with a thin grey wash over them to dull them down a bit. The inside of the portholes is a couple of shades of blue with some white highlighting, swirled a bit for effect, then several coats of gloss varnish to complete the glass look.



The support frame in the second picture is various lengths of basswood, with a basecoat of thinned white paint, then a couple of washes of grey, red oxide and brown for a weathered look. I'm not entirely happy with the frame, it looks too slight to support something as solidly built as a mini-sub. It does let the sub serve as dockside/warehouse/workshop scenery, though, which was the whole point. A new more robust support frame, possibly something with wheels on it, is somewhere in the build queue.

I forgot to include a 28mm figure when I took these photos earlier this evening, but a standing figure's head comes up to about the top of the white stripe when the sub is sitting on it's support frame. The spherical part is a 40mm sphere, according to Tobsen's website. Tobsen's casting is top-notch; there were a few very minor bubbles that needed filling with milliput, and no other casting flaws to speak of. The main body is two halves, joined vertically at the seam that runs midships vertically.

This is a very cool little vehicle, excellent scenery in a mad inventor's workshop or idle playboy's boathouse even if you don't have an underwater adventures to send it on!

[gamer Mac]

I really like this
The paint job really suits it.
The wooden pallet looks fine to me. You should see some of the pallets we have around our work. They look exactly like this and a lot of them are used for carrying extremely heavy weights.

[TadPortly]

Really cool - would not look out of place in Stingray.  All praise the mighty god Teufel!

[d phipps]

Oh wow! VERY cool!


Whoo hoo!

[Bako]

Wow, that's excellent.

[Hauptgefreiter]

Nice sub! now you need some hardsuits around it...

[wolfgangbrooks]

Would love to help. Talk to my caster though...

[bluewillow]

supurb, lovely work

[odd duck]

Looking very good!!!I always have trouble with smooth metalic finishes obviously you don't!!

[Hauptgefreiter]

Would love to help. Talk to my caster though...

Hey, nice to hear from you 
I've kept an eye on your site, waiting for them to be available again...

[Wirelizard]

Glad everyone enjoys the sub - it's a great piece and was a lot of fun to paint up, after my initial round of painter's block where I had no idea what sort of paint scheme it needed!

Would love to help. Talk to my caster though...

I was just trying to recall who picked up the ex-HLBS old fashioned divers, they're the obvious accompaniment to my sub. Are they currently out of stock, then?

(not that I'll have any spare money for a small order until the end of October at the earliest, but worth asking now!)

Looking very good!!!I always have trouble with smooth metalic finishes obviously you don't!!

I can't take much credit - the casting is very smooth right from Tobsen, and the paint is a wonderful Humbrol enamel metallic, Humbrol #53 Gunmetal. I use Reaper and other acrylics for all of my painting except metallics, where I still use Humbrol enamels. They're such nice paints that putting up with the smell of thinners is worth it.

[argsilverson]

Lovely work on this submersible. I am thinking to make one for myself.

I was just trying to recall who picked up the ex-HLBS old fashioned divers, they're the obvious accompaniment to my sub. Are they currently out of stock, then?

(not that I'll have any spare money for a small order until the end of October at the earliest, but worth asking now!)

Tiger Miniatures has them.
See: http://www.tigerminiatures.co.uk/
they are here:
http://www.tigerminiatures.co.uk/page7.htm

[Figouze]

Excellent, rarely seen but pulpish like I like to see more often...

Could it be possible to have a figure (28mm) near in order to see the size ?

[Admiral Benbow]

Great model! Nice painting and weathering.

[wolfgangbrooks]

"I was just trying to recall who picked up the ex-HLBS old fashioned divers, they're the obvious accompaniment to my sub. Are they currently out of stock, then?"

Actually I was referring to our own offering. http://recreationalconflict.lusagi.com/leadscifi.html

But we do have the HLBS divers and they are in stock. http://recreationalconflict.lusagi.com/divers.html

And if I can get my own sculpting together we'll have some of our own new divers in a few months.

Nice ship by the way.