Stern Decoration

I would hate to have to guess any many hours work have been put into the model at this stage, and I doubt I'm halfway through the build yet.

A lot of time was spent very early on in the build making sure that all the decoration etc was going to fit, I can not stress this enough it is far better to spend another week if needed to get things right at the beginning, than have to start taking things apart or altering things at this stage. Before gluing something in place have a look what fits to it or how it effects other things around it.

Take for example before gluing the brass moulding above the windows on the stern I checked to see that the coat of arms and crown would fit into place.

Various close ups of the stern galleries, as with all things on ship modelling there really is no quick way of achieving a clean look, other than patience and even more patience.

The decoration along the top of the coat of arms is actually cut into 2, the slight gap is under the coat of arms so as not to be visible.

I decided after looking at other peoples examples of the San Felipe to paint the coat of arms in red and white, it also adds a little colour to the model.

The openings under the gallery where the rear canons will be are to be blacked out at a later stage.

Now I painted the bottom gallery blue and started to fit the cast decorations, I started in the middle and worked either side. Four or five of the corner ones had to been curved in both directions, this was done over a shaped block of wood and gently hammered into the correct shape.