How to use this tutorial Whilst I have used Vallejo Modelcolor acrylics in this tutorial, you can use whatever kind or range of paints you like. The colours in the picture of the paints and materials that I used are very accurate - so simply choose, or mix them from the range of paints that you already have.
You can also cherry-pick the bits of the modeling and painting guide as befits your level of confidence, if you only want to model the Carronade as per the instructions and parts provided and paint the carriage Ochre Yellow with a no-frill approach, that's fine! You will still find some useful tips and suggestions below.
The Re-Modeling The carriage1. After gently filing and sanding the laser burn from the wooden parts and giving all the sides and facings a going over with some P600 wet&dry paper, draw a center line along the longest wooden piece
2. Using a scribe (or other pointy thing) mark the centre points and drill two 1mm diameter holes as shown in the pic below. The hole nearest the square (rear) end of the carriage is 1cm in (at its widest point) from the flat edge.
3. Using a steel rule and a (very sharp) X-acto knife* VERY CAREFULLY cut between the outermost diameters of each hole to form a channel, representing the slide mechanism of the carronade carriage. TIP: use lots of moderately light (but firm)passes with the knife - it will take a while to cut through the wood but if you go at it too heavily you will more than likely split the wooden part. (which would be bad). Note: Unless you have nerves of steel, do not try usinga surgical scalpel blade to do this - they are bendy, prone to snapping and IMHO rather scary.
3b. (alternative method of forming the slide)
If you plan on painting your ship, you could alternatively use a junior hacksaw to cut a channel down the centre of the wooden part
In both cases cut no further than halfway down the wooden piece - quite a bit of the channel is covered by the carronade platform. Be sure to square the lower corners of the slide channel - You could use a thin modeling file or some folded abrasive paper.
4. Now is a good time to drill the holes that accommodate the brass rings - if you are following the magazine assembly - simply follow the instructions, If you are going for accuracy then note the positions on the pic of the (almost) finished carronade below and refer to pics of the real things on the carronade thread (General Discussion).
Note: If you are prone to accuracy, then you will find that there are not enough brass rings supplied with the carronade to make the model seen in the pic below. I used size 14 fish hooks from my local angling shop and snipped the eyelets off (as described in yesterdays entry) as they are quite true to scale. (I also used the larger, supplied brass rings but in places not suggested by the mag).
5. Blu-tac the wooden parts to a spare piece of card and give them a coat of sanding sealant, (try to avoid too much going into the hole you have drilled _ I deliberately used an slightly oversized drill bit to compensate) allow to dry throughly, give the pieces a further light dusting with P600, dust off and apply another sparing coat of sanding sealant
Once the sanding sealant has dried give the wooden parts one last dusting with the P600 and glue them together as per the instructions in the mag.
6. Whether you want to glue the tackle points (?) (brass rings) in now is down to you, I'd recommend gluing them in since adding sanding sealant, varnish and paint can fill those tiny drilled holes making it difficult to insert the ring pins later.
The barrel7. Rather than use the pivot mechanism on the carronade barrel, as supplied, I re-modeled one from scratch using some .5mm thick styrene strip (for the plate) and some 2.5mm thick strip (for the pinion bracket/barrel support) and some 2.5mm styrene rod for the pinion itself (see the second pic in the painting part of this tutorial for a view).
If remodeling your carronade, you will have to break off the metal tab that form the pinion from the barrel - since it is actually a separate part and glued into place it should snap off easily enough using pliers and a bit of force (NOTE: Be careful not to break off the elevation adjuster 'tail' of the barrel in the process).
7b I also enlarged the bore (hole) of the barrel to further represent the large caliber of this gun, made a thin roll of GS and applied it to represent a barrel ring and sculpted a firing vent and sights (see final pic). In the absence of gs you could use some brass wire as also shown in the pic below
Adding the Royal crest and initials on the barrel was easy using the 'stamp' which I made from the original sculpt (instructions earlier in the thread) - small blob of green stuff - press down with stamp - allow to cure and clean up the edges with a very sharp blade and its 'job done!'
Finally; The WheelsSince I felt that the wheels supplied with the model were a teensy bit big, I cut some 2mm lengths of 2.5mm styrene rod and sculpted some castor brackets with greenstuff (since the wheels are barely noticeable the brackets may have been overkill - the jury is still out on that one
The PaintingThank you for staying with me so far, this bit applies to anyone who is painting their model.
1. Prime or undercoat the carriage. Because I am using acrylics, I used the last of some Games Workshop 'Skull White' spray primer - but you could just as easily use Vallejo, Humbrol or even some Matte White spray primer from B&Q.
If you are either using acrylics and can't be bothered to buy some spray primer (its worth it but I'm not going to nag you) or if you are using enamel paints, you can brush some thinned, matte white paint instead
2. If using a spray primer, use blu-tac, as before, to tack your completed carriage onto a piece of card and, following the instructions on the can carefully apply a coat or two of primer (I find several light passes, turning the card with the parts I am spraying around several times in the process) works better than one or two heavy coats.
If painting on the primer using a brush you can blu-tac the carriage to the bottom of a pencil or styrene rod which will make it a lot easier to hold while painting.
Why use a primer and why a white one? Because if you are painting a very light colour, especially a yellow hue and don't prime the surface (especially if it's quite dark), You will need to apply a lot of thin coats of paint (or a very, very thick one -which is a no-no) before you get a 'true colour'
Before I get stuck into the painting tutorial proper, Here's a pic of my suggested colours and tools.
Use this pic to either get the Vallejo paints shown or get/mix something similar with the paints you are using. If you haven't got a palette, then use the blister pack that the carronade parts came in (Storing the bits that you have not used somewhere safe.
The Brushes are sizes 1 and 2 Vallejo, Kolinsky sable brushes, not as good a Windsor and Newton Series 7 Watercolour - but a tiny fraction of the price.
Stage 1: The Shadows (No, Cliff! Down!)With everything to hand , you are ready to start painting - the first thing to do is paint all the iron bits black - whilst it is inevitable that you will get some smudges of other colours on them during the rest of the process (they can easily be touched-in later) the black will provide a better picture of what is going on with the yellow paint that you are going to apply - a better visual reference if you will than the white undercoat.
Next its time to get the shadows in. For this I am using some thinned down 'German Camouflage Black Brown' (I don't like using using black paint for anything other than is actually black in colour - it's too harsh)and since yellow ochre is a derivative of Yellow (with a slightly earthy tint), A very dark brown is called for for the deepest shadows.
Simply apply it in all the corners and where any part meets another one as shown in the photo below.
An interlude; Thinning PaintAs I am going to be telling you to thin down your paint rather a lot in this tutorial, I had better explain what I mean.
Using thinners - be it water, with a tiny drop of washing up liquid in it (this helps the thinned paint flow from the brush better) for acrylic paint, or Enamel thinners for enamel paint - thin down the paint you are using until it has an opacity similar to milk. It will require more coats before you get an even coverage but these will self level (flatten out whilst drying) more easily than a one thick coat - it will also help you avoid brush marks and other visually offensive errors.
Stage 3 - Base-coatAfter mixing some Vallejo Flat Brown and Yellow Ochre (approx 15/85 ratio) to get a warm, yellowy-brown colour I painted all the surfaces that will end up Yellow Ochre whilst leaving just a little of the former 'shadow colour' where parts meet. Keep the paint thin and persevere. It may look messy now but...
Stage 4 - Building the colour upA straight 50/50 mix of Vallejo Yellow Ochre and Vallejo Goldbrown makes quite a convincing 'Victory Yellow Ochre' applying a couple of thin coats of this colour (as before, avoiding the shadow colours) will soon give you a nice even finish
Note: The yellow colour in these pics appears a little more yolky than it actualy is - when the carronade is actually finished I will take a picture with my more serious camera under studio conditions.
Stage 5. Highlighting/EdgingSince we have covered how to get deep shadows onto our model, it is now time to exaggerate the corners and edges of it. If you look at a black&white photo you will observe that is is the varying degrees of black white and grey that define the shapes and edges of the subjects. Since the shadowing we applied first with the very dark brown colour has dealt with the recesses and shadows the highlighting stage covers the 'Pale Greys and whites' that define the edges - in this case a pale cream colour.
Mixing a bit of Vallejo biege with the Yellow Ochre mix from Stage 4 I applied this, suing the edge (not the point) of my brush - as you can see in the following pic, this defines the edges and makes them more prominent.
Finishing touchesThe forward 'base' of the carronade (The square wooden bit) was highlighted using a mix of Vallejo Chocolate brown and Beige (9/1) an all the to edges and corners and this was enhanced further with a slightly lighter mix an the very top edges fo the corner.
Whilst Black suggests that a blue/grey highlighting colour might be more appropriate, (and this would be true if the black paint were fresh) I used brown hues to suggest wear on the edges of this wooden part (exactly where the paint might wear in reality)
The Wheels were painted first in chocolate brown and then highlighted using a mix of the chocolate colour and a bit of beige.
Adding The barrel.Before gluing the barrel of the carronade to its carriage, you'll need to pop the adjuster into its relevant hole at the rear of the barrel casting. It's a bit tricky to keep it in place during this procedure so I used a tiny bit of blue-tac to hold it in place.
I used the thickest type of superglue to glue the barrel into place and did this extremely carefully - since I didn't use the pivot arrangement as supplied with the kit, more care needed to be taken when positioning it.
I then painted the elevation adjuster (crucifiix-shaped piece)in a black/basalt grey mix to represent well oiled steel
Adding few highlights with the size '0' brush to suggest the threaded part.
Thus endeth todays tutorial..
Phew..
Schnellboots on back burner
Tools.
US
