Here's my model of the 17th-century British warship "Sovereign of the Seas" (or "Royal Sovereign") built from the 1/168 scale Airfix kit. (Apologies for the LONG post, I wanted to give a brief summary of the kit and the ship it represents for those who are unfamiliar with it - not sure how well known this kit, or the real ship for that matter, is in the US).
The "Sovereign" was built in 1635 and was essentially the first ship-of-the-line, although "line of battle" tactics weren't in use at the time of its construction, In appearance, it has features of both earlier galleons and later ships. In many ways it was the "Dreadnought" of its time, as it was almost twice as large, with twice as many guns, as anything before it, and it provoked an "arms race" among other maritime nations who rapidly built their own equivalents. (The Swedish "Wasa" and French "St. Louis" are examples, I think)
Though it looks improbably ornate for a warship, it actually saw more action than many WW2 ships, serving as the flagship of the Royal Navy from 1637 to 1696 and fighting in several wars (mostly against the Dutch). Its eventual fate was to be accidentally destroyed by fire when in dock for repairs.
I believe it was originally named the "Royal Sovereign" and later renamed "Sovereign of the Seas" but I'm not sure of the date when this name change took place.
The Airfix kit dates from the 1960s and is the largest plastic kit of this ship available. (The Aurora/Pyro/Lindberg kit -recently reissued by Lindberg under the ridiculous label of "Blackbeard Pirate Ship" and briefly reissued by Revell Germany in the 1980s - is about 1/200 to 1/250 I believe) It's definitely not up to the standard of Airfix's best sailing ship kits (such as the Wasa and Prince) but significantly better than the Victory. The hull carvings and ornamentation appear to be rather simplified, but are still fairly "sharp" even in recent reissues of the kit, and look good when painted. The figurehead (intended to represent the Saxon King Edgar on horseback) is very crude, however, partly because it's moulded into the hull in two halves (a seperate single part, as on the Victory kit, would have been a better method). The carved figures at the railing ends are also "flat-backed" - I assume they were three-dimensional carvings on the real ship. Finally, the deck fittings are fairly sparse and probably not as ornate as they should be.
The biggest problem with this kit (recent issues, anyway - a 1960s or 70s-vintage kit would probably be better in this respect) is the flash and mould lines, which are a pain to remove, particularly on the railings and gun carriages. It also has the "stub" gun barrels for all of the lower gun decks, a "feature" common to all the Airfix sailing ships (those that have guns, anyway...)
I haven't attempted to make this model as accurate as possible, firstly as sailing ships are really a secondary modelling interest of mine (my main interests are powered warships from the 19th century to WW2, along with aircraft from WW2 and earlier), and secondly (most importantly) as there is so little reliable information on the real ship. (Though the
Sovereign is documented much better than, for example, the average 16th-century galleon from the Armada period, there are only two contemporary drawings of the ship - an oil painting and an engraving - which I believe actually contradict each other in some details).
Hence my modifications and additions will be fairly "generic" and more to improve the appearance of this fairly old kit than to improve its accuracy. I added some basic detail to the (completely featureless) interior sides of the bulwarks and railings. This also hides their thinness a bit. I'll also be adding some figures and additional deck "clutter", possibly some additional deck fittings as well. I modelled all the lower gunports closed as I couldn't face the job of drilling out and sanding all the ports, installing the gun decks, and lengthening all the gun barrels (as I did earlier with the Airfix Victory)!
Anyway, here are a few photos of the model under construction:
Unpainted, showing some of the detail added to the bulwark interiors.
Painting in progress. The deck and lower hull have been painted + drybrushed (the deck needs a lot of retouching) and the gilding on the upper hull is nearly complete. This still needs to be retouched a bit and has not been highlighted or washed yet, so looks fairly "rough" but it gives an idea of the finished ship's appearance. The gold is Revell (acrylic) Gold on a base of Revell matt black. It will be highlighted with Citadel acrylic "Shining Gold".
The hull below the waterline is painted with Revell Stone Grey, giving a dull off-white look which is I believe is fairly close in colour to the wax/tallow-based "white stuff" anti-fouling mixture used on ships of this period (copper plating wasn't introduced until the mid 18th century AFAIK)
Stern gallery. (Some of the painting still needs to be retouched, and an oil wash needs to be added to the carvings). Though the decoration is simplified somewhat on the Airfix kit it still looks impressively intricate and ornate when painted. Windows are painted with "graphite" metallic craft acrylic paint, which gives a more subtle effect than silver.
Guns and carriages. There are actually two different sizes of cannon here, but it's hard to tell the difference (not sure what the exact calibres were). The barrels were cast in bronze. These guns look rather small for a ship of this size, as they're the ones for the spar deck - all the larger guns were on the lower gun decks, to lower the ship's centre of gravity.
