Achilles099

[MOC] HMS Diana, 38-gun Artois class frigate

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Hello! I'm excited to share my nearly complete MOC of HMS Diana, a fifth-rate Artois class frigate launched in 1794. 

I set out to make this ship as close to true minifigure scale as I could get it, and I am pleased with the result. I also wanted to improve on the design of my previous frigate in terms of achieving greater accuracy and detail. 

51973532150_97fc07fe44.jpgIMG_1171 by Andrew Cardy, on Flickr

The ship took me over a year to design and build, which included lots of time reading up on rigging. I'll include a list of the books I read at the end of this post in case anyone is interested. I re-designed several aspects of the ship multiple times.

51973532410_336e1a49a8.jpgIMG_1168 by Andrew Cardy, on Flickr

51972963696_1ff9441470.jpgIMG_1202 by Andrew Cardy, on Flickr

The ship is built with 100% LEGO elements, including all of the rigging. When I began working on it I intended to make the masts and rigging the same way I did with my first frigate, but I soon realized that I could improve on that design and make it more accurate, albeit with far more pieces and many more LEGO strings. All of the standing rigging (the lines which support the masts) is included, as well as some of the running rigging. All of the spars are supported with a series of ropes, just as they would be on a real ship. The spars can all be lowered and raised using the rigging, in these photos the spars are in the raised position, where they would be when the sails were set. 

51971963287_833b7b605a.jpgIMG_1161 by Andrew Cardy, on Flickr

The ship is 45 inches tall at the mainmast, and 46 inches long when measured from the beakhead to the taffrail. It is 65 inches from the tip of the bowsprit to the tip of the driver boom. 

51973040293_2de869e440.jpgIMG_1166 by Andrew Cardy, on Flickr

51973037388_aef03972b9.jpgIMG_1197 by Andrew Cardy, on Flickr

Click the album for more detailed pictures, it was difficult to get some decent shots with the entire ship in frame but I did my best!

Some books I read:

Mondfeld, Wolfram zu. Historic Ship Models. New York: Sterling Publishing Company Incorporated, 1977.
 
Ball, Nick, and Simon Stephens. Navy Board Ship Models. Barnsley: Seaforth Publishing, 2018.
 
Petersson, Lennarth. Rigging Period Ship Models: A Step-by-Step Guide to the Intricacies of Square-Rig. London: Chatham Publishing, 2000.
 
Lavery, Brian. The Arming and Fitting of English Ships of War: 1600-1815, n.d.
 
Anderson, R.C. The Rigging of Ships in the Days of the Spritsail Topmast, 1600-1720. New York: Dover Publishing Inc., 1994.
 
Lavery, Brian. The Ship of the Line: A History in Ship Models. Barnsley: Seaforth Publishing, 2014.
 

I also used the Anatomy of the Ship series extensively, especially the one about HMS Diana of course, but also several of the other entries in that series. 

I hope you all enjoy the model and let me know what you think of it!

 

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WOW! Super detailed and massive. That is quite the display piece. I don't want to know how much time and effort went into the rigging, but it looks awesome.

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3 hours ago, Guyinaplaguemask said:

I love the rigging, looks super crowded

Thanks, that's what I was going for!

3 hours ago, Red Rackham said:

:pir-wub: Marvelous.

it looks super tall. Congrats!!!

It is taller than me when it's on a table! Thanks!

 

36 minutes ago, PxChris said:

That is incredibly impressive.

Thank you, glad you like it!

 

14 minutes ago, Feuer Zug said:

WOW! Super detailed and massive. That is quite the display piece. I don't want to know how much time and effort went into the rigging, but it looks awesome.

Now I just need somewhere to display it! 

The rigging was a lot of time and effort but it is also one of my favourite parts to work on because the payoff is so great when you can get it to look the way you want. Thank you!

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This is a magnificent ship with an unbelievable amount of details!  :pir-love:

Edited by NOD

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32 minutes ago, NOD said:

This is a magnificent ship with an unbelievable amount of details!  :pir-love:

Thank you! I built it very large so I could cram in as much detail as possible! Check out the full album to see all the below-deck details too!

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Wow, absolutely brilliant one !

I'm amazed ! That rigging is superb : all lego built ! Incredible !!!

Is it possible to have others pics with better lighting ? I know this is probably hard according to the size of the ship, but with better pics, this one goes straight to Eurobrick frontpage !

The stern is a masterpiece too !

Incoming ship expert tag for you !

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On 3/31/2022 at 12:30 PM, Achilles099 said:

Some books I read:

Fantastic work, and thank you for the book list, as a bookworm I'll put them on my summer reading list. :pir-thumb:

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6 hours ago, Professor Thaum said:

Wow, absolutely brilliant one !

I'm amazed ! That rigging is superb : all lego built ! Incredible !!!

Is it possible to have others pics with better lighting ? I know this is probably hard according to the size of the ship, but with better pics, this one goes straight to Eurobrick frontpage !

The stern is a masterpiece too !

Incoming ship expert tag for you !

Thank you for all the compliments!

Yeah photography is not my strong suit, I might resubmit if I can get some better shots. If the sun would finally come out where I live I could get some decent natural lighting hopefully!

2 hours ago, Marooned Marin said:

Fantastic work, and thank you for the book list, as a bookworm I'll put them on my summer reading list. :pir-thumb:

Thanks! No problem at all, high-quality sources on this topic are sometimes hard to find and difficult to assess the reliability of so I figured many people could benefit from knowing some of the sources I found were best! Enjoy the reading!

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On 4/2/2022 at 9:50 PM, Elephant Knight said:

Wow, quite the impressive and detailed MOC! The most impressive part is the fact that the rigging looks to be all official Lego string!

EKnight

Thanks! It is in fact 100% LEGO strings used for all of the rigging!

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Wow! What a stunning ship! I‘m also very impressed with the rigging. The time and effort you put into it to make it as accurate as possible! Two thumbs up!

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11 hours ago, VaneStream said:

Wow! What a stunning ship! I‘m also very impressed with the rigging. The time and effort you put into it to make it as accurate as possible! Two thumbs up!

Thanks so much for the kind words!

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Yeah, I can't believe how awesome the rigging looks in LEGO string. The patience to figure all that out... bravo! She's beautiful.

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18 hours ago, Wellesley said:

This is just insane! Great work, I love it!

Thank you! 

 

6 hours ago, Supersick_ said:

Yeah, I can't believe how awesome the rigging looks in LEGO string. The patience to figure all that out... bravo! She's beautiful.

Me too, I was worried about using all LEGO strings at this scale but I think it turned out great! I'm thinking about adding more of the running rigging if I can get some more white string, but I need to reinforce the spars somehow otherwise the weight of string on them will be too much. Thanks for the kind words!

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This is a request to frontpage this ship in particular and more ships in general.

 

Edit: Ah, I see, @Professor Thaum is already on it.

Edited by Wellesley

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