HMS King George V and HMS Prince of Wales

So, for this project I decided that I was going to try to build 3 ships at the same time (big mistake!). And to add insult to injury I also figured I would try a more difficult project than any of my scratchbuilds to date….






So, 3 KGV classes, schale 1:1800 it is then. As you can see things started out pretty well, I managed to find a blueprint, scaled it down and made a jig to trace the hull parts.


After putting the hull parts together and raising the bow a bit with modeling putty (green stuff).


Next step was the bridge, on advice of another modeler (thanks Roberto) I printed the scaled down outlines of the bridge sections on some adhesive paper and put that on my plasticcard, I could now cut out pieces more precise that I would have been able using a jig.


Which immediately led to my first mistake, I glued part of the bridge structure to far back. I would take a while though to notice it, so it wont be corrected till some pictures and stages later.


Next I drilled the holes for the main turrets and started work on the superstructure behind the bridge…


Next were the rest of the main turrets, at which point I realized that building 3 ships at the same time meant that I also needed 3 times more barrels and turrets… I needed a break after cutting and modeling that amount of little barrels!


Now things started to get ugly. I thought modelling 9 turrets with 30 main guns was bad…. now try the secondary armament! That would amount to 24 little turrets and 48 minuscule guns :S

That’s when I decided to mothball one hull for the time being, that was just to much for my poor eyes….


Some more superstructure added and a comparison with her War at Sea sister (some of the worst sculpts of the set according to many players)


A closeup showing the secondairy armament and some more work on the superstructure, added cranes and smokestack.



Added more details, the first ship is as good as finished now, ready for her paintjob…





After putting hull #1 (going to be the Prince of Wales) in her ground colors I finished up hull #2 (King George V)


The PoW in her nice camo scheme (surroundings for scale, she can fit on my hand):


A close-up


Time to finish her main battery:


And finally, after quite a few weeks of modeling and painting, finished the PoW












Now some may wonder what happened to the KGV, well, she’s still sitting on my desk unfinished because the amount of work it took to finish the PoW drained a lot of morale on doing the same stuff twice. One day I’ll finish her too.

The Prince of Wales was also the first (and till now the only) scratchbuild I ever sold, so it is currently being cared for somewhere across that big ocean. It is quite satisfying that someone rates your work so high he is willing to go to lengths to get some of it. The original idea was to build 3 ships and sell 2. Eventually I’ll finish my own copy but I think it will be long before hull #3 will ever be finished.

Another lesson learned :D

Update!

I finally got round to finishing KGV (with a little incentive of the lads at the AAminis forum doing a competition)

So here she is: