HMS Albatross WIP

[Duke]

After building the Puffin (HERE) last year, I have been wanting to build something bigger and better. Inspired by all the great ships that have been appearing recently (main influences are Captain Green Hair, Perfectionist and Admiral Croissant), I ordered some hull midsections in old brown and got to work. I'll let the pictures show you the rest!

Overview

Prow, i'm not that happy with the figurehead at the moment

View down the length of the ship.

Ladder detail and possible exposed lower deck. Cannons don't seem to fit at the moment.

Side window transition

Stern gallery with gap for the name.

I'm feeling quite pleased with what i've done so far and I wasn't going to post a WIP but i thought that if I wanted to take some comments on board (ha!) then it would be best to do so before I go much further. So please, any suggestions, criticism or general musings would be very welcome.

[kabel]

already looking really good, but for my taste the walls are a little too high

[Sebeus I]

Coming along nicely, I like the gold accents over the sides.

I don't think it's too high, considering part of it is located under the waterline.

[Tiberix]

Neat looking ship !

I would love to buy some boat parts someday!

[Admiral Croissant]

Wow that's quite an awesome ship already! Lovely colourscheme and overall the shape is good as well.

But there are indeed a few things that can be improved. I'll try my best to explain

First the bow. Actually the gold line there is very nice. Unfortunately the scheg (?) is a bit edgy, but I don't know a better way to do that...

As for the headrails, usually the top beams are longer than the ones below. The curve inwards is good, but I think they should be curved downwards as well.

You could try to use Vesta's headrail technique with pearl gold jumpers.

Again I'm not sure how to do this with pearl gold..I guess you had the same problem.

What you could do at least is to remove the pearl gold plates which I encircled in red on this picture.

The line shouldn't go as far back as the headrails.

On that same picture you can see the green circle.

I think the bow can be shortened a little bit. It's round at the bottom, but at the top there's a sort of cut out (like here)

But that's not neccesary because Trincomalee has an all round bow for example.

My other suggestions are for the stern. On most frigates, the stern deck is less wide as the rest of the deck, and yours gets wider.

This can be achieved by simply adding a roof on the side galleries (like on Achille and Vesta).

And I think you could place the stern windows a bit higher but that could just be personal taste.

That's all. Good luck and keep it up

[Sebeus I]

I just noticed something, the anchor coming out of the prefab hull looks really akward.

First of all I suggest you close those holes with slopebricks (I forgot that on Din's Fire) and make a hole higher in the ship for the anchor.

Not only to look better but just for practical purposes as well, most of the brown on this ship is underwater when sailing so you don't want water coming in via those holes

[Captain Green Hair]

Looks like you're off to a great start here, the colour scheme is solid!

The walls might be slightly too high, I also feel there is too much wide on the side. I might go for a small gold stripe on the top to break it a bit.

I also think the headrails need improvement, it looks a bit plain and hollow now.

Lastly the top of the stern could use some more detail, it is too plain for my likings.

I hope that feedback helps, good luck on building your magnificent ship!

[ZCerberus]

Love the color scheme and shape in the middle.

Bow needs some work as others have said, but this is an excellent start.

[Aalak]

It's really a nice start, CGH's hull-technic looks nice. I personally like it e bit less fractional - as you can see in my frigates, but it's fine work. My suggestion for the upper part of the white gunstripe is to change it completly into black and gold, as you can see on the picture. I think it would go nice with your color-sheme and would not look to high, as Captain Green Hair suggested,too.

(Sorry about my editing with paint, but I guess you'll get it)

What kind of rigging will she get? All Strings or the Lego-Shrouds as on the Puffin? (Nice ship by the way) If you'll use string one's I would suggest using these.

Nice work!

Edited May 26, 2011 by Aalak

[Duke]

Thank you all for your comments, I really appreciate the time taken and drawings made to help me! I'll try and address each suggestion now.

already looking really good, but for my taste the walls are a little too high

Thanks but which part do you think is too high? CGH has mentioned this as well. The front end I presume.

Coming along nicely, I like the gold accents over the sides.

I don't think it's too high, considering part of it is located under the waterline.

Thanks, I think the colour scheme has worked out nicely.

Neat looking ship !

I would love to buy some boat parts someday!

Definitely worth getting some ship parts if you can, it makes the building a lot easier! Welcome to the forum by the way.

Wow that's quite an awesome ship already! Lovely colourscheme and overall the shape is good as well.

But there are indeed a few things that can be improved. I'll try my best to explain

First the bow. Actually the gold line there is very nice. Unfortunately the scheg (?) is a bit edgy, but I don't know a better way to do that...

As for the headrails, usually the top beams are longer than the ones below. The curve inwards is good, but I think they should be curved downwards as well.

You could try to use Vesta's headrail technique with pearl gold jumpers.

Again I'm not sure how to do this with pearl gold..I guess you had the same problem.

What you could do at least is to remove the pearl gold plates which I encircled in red on this picture.

The line shouldn't go as far back as the headrails.

On that same picture you can see the green circle.

I think the bow can be shortened a little bit. It's round at the bottom, but at the top there's a sort of cut out (like here)

But that's not neccesary because Trincomalee has an all round bow for example.

My other suggestions are for the stern. On most frigates, the stern deck is less wide as the rest of the deck, and yours gets wider.

This can be achieved by simply adding a roof on the side galleries (like on Achille and Vesta).

And I think you could place the stern windows a bit higher but that could just be personal taste.

That's all. Good luck and keep it up

Thanks for your thoughtful comments. Pearl gold is definitely a tricky colour to use because of the limited number of pieces. Regarding the head rails, do you think that the positioning against the side of the ship is a bad height, or the position on the prow? I can't think of any way to connect them either with the current technique. I'll certainly try removing the plates you circled.

With regards to the bow shape, I can't get that picture to load but it's a case of lowering the front end more?

The stern , such a tricky bit to work on.. I will see what I can do.

I just noticed something, the anchor coming out of the prefab hull looks really akward.

First of all I suggest you close those holes with slopebricks (I forgot that on Din's Fire) and make a hole higher in the ship for the anchor.

Not only to look better but just for practical purposes as well, most of the brown on this ship is underwater when sailing so you don't want water coming in via those holes

Hi, thanks for you comments. The anchor is just a sort of temporary solution at the moment and partly to remind me that I need to include one somewhere. I will take on board your point about closing up those holes.

Looks like you're off to a great start here, the colour scheme is solid!

The walls might be slightly too high, I also feel there is too much wide on the side. I might go for a small gold stripe on the top to break it a bit.

I also think the headrails need improvement, it looks a bit plain and hollow now.

Lastly the top of the stern could use some more detail, it is too plain for my likings.

I hope that feedback helps, good luck on building your magnificent ship!

Hi Captain, thanks for the suggestions. I've already addressed a couple of points with my other answers, it seems the general consensus is that the (front?) walls are too high. I'll try lowering them and adding some more details there and on the stern.

Love the color scheme and shape in the middle.

Bow needs some work as others have said, but this is an excellent start.

Thanks for looking in, I appreciated all your comments with the Puffin before.

It's really a nice start, CGH's hull-technic looks nice. I personally like it e bit less fractional - as you can see in my frigates, but it's fine work. My suggestion for the upper part of the white gunstripe is to change it completly into black and gold, as you can see on the picture. I think it would go nice with your color-sheme and would not look to high, as Captain Green Hair suggested,too.

(Sorry about my editing with paint, but I guess you'll get it)

What kind of rigging will she get? All Strings or the Lego-Shrouds as on the Puffin? (Nice ship by the way) If you'll use string one's I would suggest using these.

Nice work!

Thanks for the picture Aalak, I think that looks like a nice pattern so i'll certainly try implementing it with the bow redesign. I am at the moment planning on some proper string rigging. With the Puffin I always felt that it was going to be temporary so I didn't want to invest the time in full rigging. I had been thinking of those pieces as well, they should be easy to fit into the side!

Thanks everyone, a lot to be getting on with now..

[______]

Awesome ship so far! I don't usually post on WIPs but I thought I would pop in to say that it is looking fine, also a great idea to name it after one of the sailors' biggest superstitions!

[Darth Yogi]

Wow! I can't tell you anything about accuracy, but I can say that it really looks beautiful.

Great job