Here are some work-in-progress photos of my Roman galley warship model. This is built from the current Academy kit which is either a reissue or an exact copy of the 1970s Imai kit, and represents a smallish Roman galley from the late Republican period. The scale on the box is given as "1/250" but the model is actually somewhere between 1/72 and 1/96.
So far I've assembled and painted the basic hull and masts, and painted the oars (not fitted yet). Most of the smaller parts are yet to be added along with the sails, rigging, etc. The display stand is also unpainted currently.
I decided to go for a fairly toned-down and weathered appearance compared to the kit's suggested colour scheme. Most of the ship is painted to represent weathered, unvarnished wood; I used different base colours and highlights to represent different woods, for the hull and deck planks, fittings, spars etc. The decks were also given a somewhat more greyish and weathered appearance compared to the hull. The wales are painted with tar (Revell Tar Black) as is the hull bottom, and the decorated parts of the hull are painted with red ochre; this is a pigment (iron-based, I think) well-known for its use on 18th and 19th century ships, but I strongly suspect it was also known and used in ancient times.
I painted the model using acrylics - the base colours are mostly Revell (with Caldercraft paint for the red ochre); the wood effect is produced by first drybrushing with lighter colours (both Revell and craft acrylic paint) then adding a thin black oil wash to highlight the grain and plank seams. Gilded areas are Vallejo Old Gold over a base coat of tar black, and the bronze ram is two coats of Revell Copper over a matt black base coat, with green, black and grey oil washes to represent "verdigris" corrosion.
I also scratchbuilt a new fighting tower to replace the "stone" tower in the kit. There is evidence for Roman ships carrying towers like that, made of wood painted to resemble stone, but I really didn't like the look of it on the finished model, so I made a new tower, of approximately the same dimensions as the original, of a lighter wood construction (Photo 2 shows the kit tower for comparison).
The tower is made from Evergreen and Slaters styrene - the planked surfaces are Slaters textured styrene sheet - with the ladder from the kit. Not knowing much about the style and construction methods of Roman wooden fortifications, I went for a simple and functional a design as possible, based loosely on the style of the kit's stone tower. They're not visible in these photos, but the vertical pillars have angled supporting struts in the upper corners.
Finally, I'd be interested to hear any thoughts on this possible solution to the oar problem (see my
previous Roman warship thread). Here the oars are placed alternately in the upper and lower banks, so the model can be built as a bireme without adding any more oars (note that the oars aren't very even-looking, as they aren't glued in place). The empty holes on the underside of the outrigger (apostis) aren't visible, whilst those on the side don't look conspicuously wrong to my eye.
Anyway - I'll post some more photos when the model has made further progress!