Steve's Models

[joea]

Wow just found this thread! You got skillz Steve! Very cheerful thing to see on a Sunday evening before the Monday grind!

[Jimbuna]

You missed a portlight on the starboard quarter of the first Leander

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

You missed a portlight on the starboard quarter of the first Leander

That's one of my frustrations. I found a source for 1/2400 lifeboats and motor launches, so these have them, four each. They don't show up well in the pictures, but they do when you're holding one. The frustration comes with the fact that nobody seems to make ventilator funnels in that scale. The ventilator funnels are the ones with the big bell-like tops that help cool the engine and boiler rooms - the kind Indy hid in in Raiders Of The Lost Ark. On these ships they had six or eight of them and they were huge, dominating the ship's profile. To me they look naked without them. I could carve them out of plastic, but because of the shape there's no way I can cast them in resin. It's annoying, because they really would make a difference.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Red October1984

Your modeling skills are amazing!

Thanks, Red. Positive feedback is always nice, though I'm more aware of my failings. I'm happy with what I'm doing right now, but I keep my eye on what others are up to and I don't really begin to compare. If I really wanted to build something for a contest I'm sure I could do a lot better, but I don't feel like spending the extra time it would take. I've been not doing it for far too long, and I just want to get stuff done.

Originally Posted by joea

Wow just found this thread! You got skillz Steve! Very cheerful thing to see on a Sunday evening before the Monday grind!

Thanks, Joe. I'll never forget that it was you who turned me on to the Penguiners website all that time ago, even if I haven't visited there in ages.

[Sailor Steve]

My next project: A Voisin LA III. It was a Voisin III that scored history's very first aerial victory when two Frenchmen, Sergeant Joseph Frantz and Corporal Louis Quénault, mounted a Hotchkiss machine gun on their plane and shot down a German Aviatik B.II (I'll be building one of those soon) on October 5, 1914. The two German pilots, Oberleutnant Fritz von Zangen and Sergeant Wilhelm Schlichting, returned fire with rifles, but both were killed. Surprisingly, Frantz and Quénault both survived the war, Frantz dying in 1979 at age 89.

This is a vac kit, short for vacuformed. A normal plastic kit is injection-molded, meaning liquid plastic is injected into a steel mold and allowed to cure. With vacuforming a sheet of plastic is heated on a flat plate. A mold is pressed onto it and the air is sucked out through tiny holes in the mold. The result is that all the parts are on a single sheet, and must be cut out and sanded smooth. This takes time, but can be well worth it. Still, they are nothing compared to modern resin and plastic kits. I just found out that there was a very nice resin Voisin kit back in 1999, but it was a limited-run kit and is very rare (i.e. very expensive) these days. So the old vac kit it is. I've had it floating around for many years now. Rocky and I bought them at the same time. My intent was to build a one-off special which had a sliding rail so the observer could shoot up and behind. He had a photograph of an Italian plane that had the normal machine gun for the observer plus a Rivelli machine pistol for the pilot. I think mine will now just be the standard version.

[Sailor Steve]

Fuselage halves cut out and sanded smooth. The plastic in a vac kit is softer than that in a normal injection-molded model. It's still pretty stiff, but it requires a little extra bracing. This involves cutting a couple of pieces of scrap from the sheet and gluing it inside the halves to give support.

[Sailor Steve]

Basic fuselage assembly, first primer coat. There are no major flaws, but the seams are visible. A little sanding should fix that.

[Jimbuna]

Had to look this one up...the pilot and observer canopy looks like a gondola.

[Red October1984]

Man...you're cranking these things out just like that

Where do you put all of this stuff?

[Sailor Steve]

In suitcases, packed in foam. I thought I mentioned it before. Anyway, a picture is worth at least ten words.

[Red October1984]

And these are just your planes!


You should do a battlefield model sometime. Like a large floor model with the planes and tanks and soldiers.


I bet it'd be awesome if you do it.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Red October1984

And these are just your planes!

No, those are just my WW1 planes.

You should do a battlefield model sometime. Like a large floor model with the planes and tanks and soldiers.


I bet it'd be awesome if you do it.

It would if it were possible. The first problem is scale. The aircraft models are all 1/72 scale. The WW1 game is 1/197 (1"=5m). The '30s game is 1/394 (1"=10m). The WW2 game is 1/787 (1"=20m). This is due to the limitation of the stands. We also experimented with a special 1"=15m version for Battle of Britain. My ship game is 1/9000 (1"=250 yards). There is a huge difference in movement scale between them. Also the airplane game in all its variants have a movement turn of 5 seconds, which can take 10-20 minutes of real time to play. The ship game has a movement turn of 1 minute, which can take anywhere from 15 seconds to 20 minutes to play. The airplane game has ships and vehicles as targets, but in airplane scale they hardly move at all, and the ship game has airplane rules, but the planes are barely this side of abstract, appearing on the table and moving completely across it in one game turn.

So there is no way the two could ever be compatible.

The second problem is logistics. Ship and tank games are designed to be played on tabletops. Some airplane games are too, but you can see from the pictures I posted earlier that our game is played on stands on the floor. We have our ships, vehicles and even bomber formations drawn on paper so the stands can roll over them, but you can see the difficulties with having tiny model ships or tanks scattered all over the floor we are walking and crawling on. Hands and knees punctured by ships' masts. Tiny models getting stepped on and squished. Tiny models getting kicked several feet from where they are supposed to be.

Just not doable.

[Red October1984]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

No, those are just my WW1 planes.

You should build a showroom.

It would if it were possible. The first problem is scale. The aircraft models are all 1/72 scale. The WW1 game is 1/197 (1"=5m). The '30s game is 1/394 (1"=10m). The WW2 game is 1/787 (1"=20m). This is due to the limitation of the stands. We also experimented with a special 1"=15m version for Battle of Britain. My ship game is 1/9000 (1"=250 yards). There is a huge difference in movement scale between them. Also the airplane game in all its variants have a movement turn of 5 seconds, which can take 10-20 minutes of real time to play. The ship game has a movement turn of 1 minute, which can take anywhere from 15 seconds to 20 minutes to play. The airplane game has ships and vehicles as targets, but in airplane scale they hardly move at all, and the ship game has airplane rules, but the planes are barely this side of abstract, appearing on the table and moving completely across it in one game turn.

So there is no way the two could ever be compatible.

The second problem is logistics. Ship and tank games are designed to be played on tabletops. Some airplane games are too, but you can see from the pictures I posted earlier that our game is played on stands on the floor. We have our ships, vehicles and even bomber formations drawn on paper so the stands can roll over them, but you can see the difficulties with having tiny model ships or tanks scattered all over the floor we are walking and crawling on. Hands and knees punctured by ships' masts. Tiny models getting stepped on and squished. Tiny models getting kicked several feet from where they are supposed to be.

Just not doable.

You could do one that's not part of your game that you do.

Model like a section of a destroyed city with some troops and have the Battle of Stalingrad.


My Norwegian friend Marinenachrichtendienst does some modeling. I've always thought he does a good job on the landscapes.

Abandoned Part One

Abandoned Part Two

Road Block Part One

Road Block Part Two

Blue 18 Down Part One

Blue 18 Down Part Two


I'm just sitting here like "The perfect model would be if these two guys work together." You both do great work.

If he did the buildings and landscape and you did the vehicles it would be a work of art worth more than a 1000 words.


EDIT: For some reason, the word road-block without the hyphen is censored. I added a space in the words above so it wouldn't turn into a bunch of asterisks.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Red October1984

You should build a showroom.

I once planned to build a model of every US aircraft type starting with the Glenn Martin Bomber of 1918 and the Curtiss PN-1 of 1921. I actually started with the Curtiss P-1 series of 1926, but I got sidetracked. The problem is that to accomplish such a feat one would need the equivalent of a scale model museum, and I've never had that kind of money. Then I found it was easier just to build the game pieces I needed. Not as much pressure and much easier to store. They only come out of their cases when they were needed.

You could do one that's not part of your game that you do.

True, but why would I want to. Modelling is like modding - you make what you want to, not what someone else thinks you should. If somebody offered me a contract to build something I didn't care about, I'd probably take it, but it would cost him a pretty penny.

Model like a section of a destroyed city with some troops and have the Battle of Stalingrad.

There are thousands of gamers who do exactly that. It's perfect for an infantry and armor game. I just happen to have exactly zero interest in that sort of game. I like airplanes and I like ships.

My Norwegian friend Marinenachrichtendienst does some modeling. I've always thought he does a good job on the landscapes.

Those are absolutely gorgeous dioramas. They are made to tell a story, and they do so fantastically well. I've been tempted to try a diorama at different times in the past, but it always got sidetracked. On the other hand they have absolutely nothing to do with gaming of any kind. They are display models, and very fine ones.

I'm just sitting here like "The perfect model would be if these two guys work together." You both do great work.

For their intended purpose those are already perfect models. What would he need me for? And vice-versa: I build what I want to, for my own purposes. I couldn't help him with what he does, and he can't help me with my own obsessions. All I can do is admire his work and give him the praise it deserves.

If he did the buildings and landscape and you did the vehicles it would be a work of art worth more than a 1000 words.

Is there something wrong with his vehicles? The rust and peeling paint on the pickup alone are works of art. His dedication to detail is wonderful. I might be able to match something like that, but I'm not claiming I could, and I certainly couldn't top it. Just from this brief glimpse of his work I'd have to say he's one of the greats.

I'm not saying I wouldn't work with somebody else if the occasion arose, but unless it was some big project paid for by someone else we'd just get in each others' way.

And I'm happy building what I build. And I've already pointed out that my game pieces, nice though they may be, are not even close to contest quaility. His are. I could build contest models, but I'd be looking at several months for each one, rather than a few days.

[Red October1984]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Modelling is like modding - you make what you want to, not what someone else thinks you should. If somebody offered me a contract to build something I didn't care about, I'd probably take it, but it would cost him a pretty penny.

I understand. Carry on, Sailor.

Is there something wrong with his vehicles? The rust and peeling paint on the pickup alone are works of art. His dedication to detail is wonderful. I might be able to match something like that, but I'm not claiming I could, and I certainly couldn't top it. Just from this brief glimpse of his work I'd have to say he's one of the greats.

There's nothing wrong with them...but I was thinking that since you do some awesome work on the planes you make.... Maybe there's something you two could work together on.

And I'm happy building what I build. And I've already pointed out that my game pieces, nice though they may be, are not even close to contest quaility. His are. I could build contest models, but I'd be looking at several months for each one, rather than a few days.

I'm glad you're happy doing what you do. I don't want to change that.

This was simply me thinking out loud.

Both you guys are great modellers.