Having completed my little Heller Tartane, I have started on my next project. This is again a ship in 1/150 scale, but of a rather different subject:
This is Meng Models ship model of the 'Taiping', a ship that featured in a Chinese film released a few years ago, 'The Crossing'. This kit is a movie tie-in and a rather sumptuous production. Someone else posted an in-box review of the kit on the forums here a couple of years ago, but I haven't seen a build log yet.
This is quite an expensive kit but I managed to find one with a hefty discount. It comes in a huge box, lined with felt and the instruction manual is a hardcover booklet! There are lots of parts on a number of sprues, pre-coloured in various colours and transparencies. The parts look well detailed and are totally flash-free. In the blurb it says that the kit can be completed as snap-together without cement. The hull comes in one part, pre-coloured, and is 21"/53 cm long. A USB LED strip is included to provide interior lighting, a bit of a gimmick perhaps but we'll see.
Although the colours of the parts look reasonably sensible, I have decided to give everything a coat of paint to get rid of the plasticky sheen, and to bring out some more detail, of which there is plenty. For the rest this will be pretty much an out-of-the-box build, with just some minor additions such as rigging. Apparently there was an aftermarket wooden deck set available but I couldn't find it for sale, and anyway I think I may be able to do something with the plastic as it stands.
A few pictures of what is in the box:
And the instruction book, which is almost entirely in Chinese but has very clear diagrams referring to numbered parts.
According to the info on the Meng website, "the steamer Taiping is a type of Great Lakes passenger-freight ship made in the American Manitowoc shipyard. It was launched in 1920 with the load of 2050 tons. During WWII, it was used as the short supply ship for U.S forces. On July 14th 1948, it was changed (sic) into a passenger ship by Shanghai Zhonglian Company with the carrying capacity of 508 passengers, travelling between Shanghai and Keelung." This was a major calamity and the ship went down with the loss of 1500 lives.
I have tried to find more info on this ship but so far I've drawn a blank. A website about the Manitowoc shipyard lists many vessels constructed there over the years, but no mention of this one. I can't therefore definitely say if this is a model of a historic protoype or merely a representation of what was used in the film, but in any case I think it looks good and worth building.
To compare it with my little Tartane, at the same scale of 1/150:
