By Max Cosby
1/72 HMCS Sackville (Revell Germany)
These are photos of HMCS Sackville which I am building in her 1944 guise for a museum. The colouring in some photos is a bit off and a few are out of focus- sorry. I have been using the Revell kit along with the GLS Brass and metal sets as well as a lot of scratchbilding. Some examples are: the stern shape was changed, the after superstructure shortened, the fo'c'stle lengthened, stem altered and all the rivets along the hull were made using drops of high viscosity super glue. The ship is sitting in an acrylic box with a painted base and acrylic gel has been used to create the water. The photos show her with many of the components just sitting on the hull for general effect and so they will not end up there.
Obviously I have a long way to go but I thought that I might as well add some 'in progress' shots. If there are any questions then please feel free to ask.
Updated 05-09-06 New images begin page 2
The photos are mainly to demonstrate the sea, rather than the ship herself. The previous photos show the acrylic gel being added to the acrylic base.
Since then the base has been finished. The first step was to add the bow wave. This done using clear plastic which was cut from a water bottle and then graphted into the existing acrylic-gel bow wave. The whole sculpted base was painted using normal children's basic paint in a grey/ green. The waves were then gently highlighted with slightly paler grey/green.
Once this paint had dried, a sponge with large pores was dipped in children's white paint and the basic wake was created. After this, some acrylic gel was mixed with a small amount of water to dilute it and then the mixture was placed in sprayer, like the ones used in hairdressers or for watering small plants, and the whole base liberally covered in a film of acrylic gel. At the stage the grey/green and the white of the wake merged slightly, to produce a base colour for the final bright white highlights.These were done using high gloss brilliant white acrylic paint slightly diluted and fed through the sprayer. The areas of the sea that were to remain grey/green were masked off and the white highlights were added. The sprayer produced droplets of white, which gave a pleasing mottled effect. Once that was dry, another film of acrylic gel was sprayed on and allowed to dry. This gave the sea a transparent appearance but because the white highlights were acrylic based paint, they didn't run into the other colours.
The base was allowed to thoroughly dry before cotton wool was added to the bow wave and used to create the water exiting from various pipes around the hull, including the 'splash' under water.
