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Playing in the Sandbox Group Build Sept 1, 2024 - Jn 1, 2025

Nautilus and the giant Squid


DocRob

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You have these field days in modelling and you have these tasks, you just want to get done. I had three hours of the latter today, masking windows of the Nautilus. It was boring to get almost 200 tiny masks aligned, which makes masking the glasshouse of, let's say a FW-189, seem like a walk in the park, but stenciling jets still tops my personal 'most hated jobs in modelling list', who would have thought that.
I used masks made out of thin black vinyl by Aztek, which seems to be better than the laminated paper ones, which were provided with the kit. With so many panes I would opt for the best masks available and fit and pre cut (thanks god) were good.
The windows got a hefty dose of primer afterwards, to hinder unwanted light emission.

Cheers (blurry eyed) Rob

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Today I added the sides of the hull, with gluing the primary brass painted windows in. The top parts of the hull are not glued yet, but are inserted to give the correct shape.
In front you see my dummy Panther hull with rubbed on and sprayed on metallic Colours for testing.
Against my primary idea of using wax like True Metal Colours to rub on, I decided to airbrush the hull with Extreme Metal Colours, from the AK range. All of them look really good and the polished wax has a very realistic shine after polishing, but, after closely inspect the parts, there might be areas where the wax will be hard to rub in and tests showed, that they are a little bit more 'vulnerable' to washes in later stages and I haven't tried to seal them. Another problem with polishing might be the abrasion of colour/primer on raised details like rivets, ... 

Cheers Rob

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Time for Heavy Metal. The sub was ready assembled, without PE and some details like the propeller and ram. PE will not be painted, but burnished instead. As a change of plan, I stowed the battery in the hull and installed the switch. After checking again for unwanted light emission  the Nautilus was primed with Tamiya rattle can.
Then the fun began,
the whole ship was sprayed in Bronze, then Brass to highlight the panels and the darker brass again to have more control and definition in the darker areas. Some highlights on the upper side were picked up with shiny Brass. Generally the lower hull was shaded a little darker, with Bronze more prominent.
The last pass was with Jet exhaust to further darken the Colours, more on the lower hull and just a bit on the upper side.
The tails were airbrushed in Copper and for the ram I used Gunmetal and stainless steel.
All metal Colours are from AK's Extreme Metal range and spray very good, with very fine grain and good coverage, except Copper, which is very translucent.
I don't know where to go from here, detail painting for sure and weathering of course, but I haven't decided on the final look and how worn it should be.

Cheers Rob

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Yesterday I learned, that Spain and that includes my tiny island will be shut down at least until 10th of may. After I heard that, I decided to torture myself a little bit further, bad news and a bad task don't make a double bad day, so why not.
The anchor chains of the Nautilus are generally nicely molded, but the links have holes only if you look from above, the sides of the links are solid. I pre drilled all the links with a sharp blade tip and then used a 0,5mm drill to finalize the task. Somehow I managed not to break a single link, phew.

Cheers Rob

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Sorry to disappoint you, but I was born in Berlin and only live on the Canary Islands since five Years now.  I just had to leave Berlin by that time, too much stress and too many people. I love the tranquillo livestyle here and the possibility of mountain biking, surfing and swimming all year long aaannd the very friendly people. Modelling wise it's muy desperado, but that's why I'm here on LSM ;).
I have never been to Pamplona, but visited San Sebastian and Bilbao in Basque and some other places with brutal waves on the northern coast of Spain. Yeah, I understand your grandmother, I do lots of risky sports, but running from a mad bull is not one of them :D.

Cheers Rob

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Rob We have a lot of the same tastes!!!  I live north of Los Angles. I used to surf and mountain bike a lot. Also fishing / Free-diving at the Channel Islands still to this day

The people of Spain are great. I feel like home there. Of all the places in Europe I have been. That's the place I would like to live, on the coast. Maybe do to that I'm part Basque with Italian and Croat. Used to watch these guys from Spain with Hobie Tandem Island Kayaks sailing on you tube. I need to go back soon!  

Germans are great to! I was to live near Stuttgart at one time. Have friends there as in England. The greatest party that I went to was in Germany. A  Czech guy with a Polish wife stood up and said. A few years back we where all fighting each other. Now we sit here eating together as friends. I like it this way!!!!  That is the short version of it, and thirty years ago. But it meant a lot to me as they were older than me and had to be in the war or affected by it.

Cheers

Danny

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9 hours ago, Vandy1 VX-4 said:

Rob We have a lot of the same tastes!!!  I live north of Los Angles. I used to surf and mountain bike a lot. Also fishing / Free-diving at the Channel Islands still to this day

Good to see somebody with similar interests and an international point of view :D. Like Thor Heyerdal said: 'Borders, I haven't seen any, but I've heard that they exist in peoples minds'. In these times of lockdown states without the possibility of traveling, it's good to make the mind wander to visited places and envision places to be visited.
LSM is that to me with modelling, it's my connection to the world of glue sniffers :lol:.
I visited California sometimes and liked it a lot. I was surfing in Carlsbad and Huntington Beach, where I have friends. You definitely have the better waves, but also freezing water (my last trip was in Dezember some years ago). On my tiny island the quality waves are from northern or western swells, but you cannot surf them, because there are only rocks and cliffs. On the eastern side it's possible, but lacks quality, but the upside is, no line up, rarely there is another surfer in the water at the same time.
I love the Basque area and the north of Spain and will travel there in future times, not only for surfing, but for their fine food also.
If you want to dig in new countries, try Portugal. I love the coast north of Lisbon, formerly called Estremdura. Europas best Surf spots, sea food and some of the friendliest people I ever met are only some of the highlights. I was ready to live there, when I found my precious tiny island and decided to stay here instead.

Cheers Rob 

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Today I did some detail painting and added the tailfins with propeller and struts permanently. Because I felt a little stickiness on the Extreme Colour surfaces after some days, I decided to add a coat of Future before weathering begins with washes and pigments. 
The etched railings, steps and wire struts will be added as one of the last steps after finishing the Kalmar and placing the Nautilus in it's arms.

Cheers Rob

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4 hours ago, harv said:

Beautiful!.......harv :popcorn:

 

2 hours ago, Martinnfb said:

Such a joyful experience, thank you for sharing Rob. :unworthy:

Thanks Gentlemen, it's a pleasure if you have as much joy as I have with the Nautilus. It's a great kit and I really enjoy to build something different from planes and tanks and I love to replicate materials and this is a great canvas for non FE-Metals.

Cheers Rob 

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37 minutes ago, GusMac said:

Looking great Rob. The metal effects are really effective, especially on the main hull.

Thanks Gus, I hope I'm able to give the whole thing a beautiful patina through weathering.

Cheers Rob

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I made great progress today with the Nautilus. I started bad, using light and dark green grime wash, with suboptimal result and decided to mainly lay on pigments for weathering. I used green and blue pigments to work the hull, dabbing first and then rub with a flat  brush in the direction of the streaming water. Another light pass with the same brush dampened a little gave some streaks.
To represent the patina of the materials correct, I used more of the green pigment for the bronze hull and more of the blue for the rudder parts. Some metal pigments and some rust streaks were added.
Then the fun began :icon_eek:, removing hundreds of tiny masks.
The Nautilus is mostly done, only the ram and PE railings and struts will be added later, when the squid is finished.

Cheers Rob

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Some surface details, where the shininess depends on the angle of light, I like it a lot 

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Night shots, were to the eye, the bright spots are white, the lighted windows in a cosy yellow, and the bridge (eyes) are greenish.

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Mask salad for dinner :D

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Thanks Harv, I can tell you, it's lots of fun to be able to go full freestyle, as there is no real Nautilus, it's not even an exact replica of the movie one, in other words a blank canvas.

Cheers Rob

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12 hours ago, GusMac said:

That looks stunning Rob. Can't believe you got all those little masks done with any bleeding under the edges.

Thanks Gus, the masks worked really good and adhered very well and it was not so easy to remove them. I've no idea how the kit supplied masks are, but these from Aztek worked their part for sure.

43 minutes ago, Lothar said:

Stunning, I love these "different" models and even more so when they are as beautifully finished as yours is - I have to compliment you on that:thumbsup2:

Thank you Lothar, once in a while I have to pick one of the 'different' kits out of my stash. It's so refreshing not to care about RLM's and resembling historic pics in a build and let your mind wander with an obscure subject. I even started to think about bashing some airplane and tank kits for some Steam Punk builds.

Cheers Rob

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