Thursday, April 19, 2012

Revell Viking Ship Finished

I just finished a project I started at Christmas - making the Revell Viking ship as a piece of terrain for SAGA. I changed my mind a couple of times about whether I wanted it beached or at sea, but in either case I started by hacking it off at the waterline. I made a bit of a mess of this. Ultimately I decided to have it beached, so it looks like it is sunk into the beach too deeply, but hey. I mounted it on some mdf and added a beach texture with sand and some breaking surf from DAS modelling clay. The furled sail was made from material soaked in PVA.
I started painting the base with some acrylic craft paint I had lying around. Then I simply painted the ship with some craft paint, before painting it over with Cabots woodstain and spraying it with Tamiya matt varnish. I am very pleased with the effect - the Revell kit has beautifully modelled woodgrain that the varnish picks up nicely. The surf was finished with shades of duck egg green, blue-grey and white before having a couple of layers of gloss varnish brushed over it. I will probably do another couple of layers when I buy some more. I finished it off with some simplified rigging, extra simplified because I managed to throw away the blocks needed to secure the rigging forward of the mast. Duh.
I'm pretty pleased with the final result, and it will do the job as an objective marker in SAGA. The beach is too dark, and I will try to lighten it with some shades of grey and light brown. Also, in retrospect, I would model the base so that it fits over the corner of a terrain board, like this fantastic example that puts mine in the shade. I will have to give some thought to making a section of coastline that the ship can fit into. In summary, I recommend the Revell kit - it's a cracker! Just have to keep it away from those pesky mermaids...

8 comments:

  1. Very nice, you certainly made a grand job on this.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Mate that is a great job. I was wondering if i should get one of these when i get round to actually painting my Vikings and i think i will. I hope i do as good a job :D

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yours is quite good. I think corner vs. straight piece is six of one half dozen of the other. The way you've built yours you could add pieces of scenery along the sides to make any number of configurations. The only critique I have is that the beach color seems a little too reminiscent of water in the pictures, so a sandier color dry brushed on might confuse my brain less.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Sean. Yes - I'm not happy with the beach. I've drybrushed a bit of desert sand on it and will have a look at it in a day or so to see how it grabs me.

      Delete
  4. Great work on the Viking ship; it's a nice kit - tricky to change to waterline though

    SMER do a 1/60 ship which is quiet nice (see http://saxons-and-vikings.blogspot.fr/2011/05/ship-building-in-progress.html)

    -- Allan

    ReplyDelete
  5. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I really enjoyed your work.I saw that you did not used the kit shields. I have interresse shields if you do not go use them . and again congratulations for the work!

      Delete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.