HMS Starling
by David Griffith

1/700 HMS Starling (White Ensign)

This is the Black Swan Sloop HMS Starling, from the White Ensign 1/700 resin kit. It is a rather delightful little thing, and as with all White Ensign kits, you know you are getting something complete. Unless you really want to, you don’t have to add anything extra, bar paint, glue and rigging.

This was pretty much an out of the box build, although I did replace the 4” gun barrels with wire (in retrospect a touch too long), thin down the various splinter shields, which always appear to be a bit thick and softly moulded on WEM kits.

Painting was done mainly with Colourcoats enamels, but something else for the Semtex decks. Filters, pinwashes and drybrushing were done with artis’s oils.

Rigging is a combination of “Caenis” flytying thread and nylon cord from carrier bag handles, teased out to individual fibres.

The base is acrylic gel medium on top of painted watercolour paper.

I would recommend this kit to anyone looking for a first project in resin ship modelling.