I think your'e right about the boats being white from the photograph Thomas, I would not take the drawing too literally though, way too much room for artistic licence on the artists part.

Gentlemen, I was not lazy during the christmas days and was able to finish some build steps.

First I painted and placed some oars from the Northern Star photoetched set onto the bow and stern lifeboats. Northern Star´s oars are looking much more elaborated and crisp than these of the Blue Star etched set - the latter ones are simply way too big and simplyfied.



after this I replaced the kit´s plastic gun barrels from the stern upper deck with ORANGE HOBBY´s turned brass barrels - although the turned barrels are nice you will not see a big difference in the end though.


After placing the guns onto their sockets at the ship I added the etched shields from the BLUE STAR pe-set. You need a steady hand here not to break any other parts around


Then it was time to care about the torpedoboats. I did followed John´s advice and painted the two boats in plain white, added each two position lights with Evergreen 0,5 mm rod. After the white paint was thoroughly dry I painted the funnel in black and gave the surface details a careful pinwash with TAMIYA´s Panel line Accent Color. The superfluous Color from the pinwash was removed with a turpentin dampened brush. After this was dry I just had to paint the position lights with oil colors. And this how the two boats are looking now:


Now I am happy that I can say the aft part of the ship is completed:


There is just the bow´s anchors with their chains, the railing for the 2nd upperdeck and the ships outer railings remaining - land is in sight!

Cheers

Thomas

Thomas,

She's looking terriffic!

I can't say I agree with you about the turned brass gun barrels making little difference, though. Even though the improvement may not be that immediately dramatic, small upgrades like these throughout the build create a cumulative effect of superior detail and delicacy in a ship model that is quite noticeable. Keep up the good work!

Hello Tim, yes maybe you are right about the cumulative effect of small improvements. In the end we will see how the lady look like.

Today I had, as expected, a difficult time with installing the railings at the 2nd upper deck. Bronco force you to install the railings in three parts instead of just one for each side. This makes it, at least for me, more difficult to bend the middle part correctly and keep the correct distances with the outer railings to avoid gaps. However, after the second effort with the first middle part I succeded


This is how the deck looks with all of its railings installed


And this is the look after the 2nd upper deck was installed together with the front mast and the etched stairs already fixed too at both sides



There are just the anchors, the upper and lower shrouds for both masts, the outer railings and some small parts to fix to finish the main build. After this I will prepare the base to install the ship onto its base. Later I will do the rigging and finally the crewmembers...

Really nice work with bending those railings. It does take talent to get them looking the same at each bend.

First let me wish you all visitors and Followers of this blog a healthy and happy new year 2018!

@ Mark: Thank you man, but I can assure you it also takes a lot of nerves to do those #§%&!* railings

Today I finished the chapter "paint and glue together the kit and aftermarket parts" . I installed the anchors, replace the lost searchlight with an improved selfmade one, glued all the outer railings and fixed some smaller color mistakes. The lady looks very nice now but, like most nice ladies, needed to be touched with care . This are the final results now before I will try my hands with rigging wire and place the ship in its Habitat onto a sea diorama plate:

Left broadside


Right broadside


Look from the bow to the 2nd upper deck


Finished bow mast


Finished stern mast


View from the stern forward


Top view of the stern upper deck


Top view of the 2nd upper deck


Top view of the ships bow upper deck


now its time for the dio base and some strings...

Looking great Thomas,

Cheers

Si

Great work Thomas. It looks very neat on the close ups. Looking forward to seeing it in the water.

cheers
Michael

@ Michael: Thank you for the flowers. Until now the build was a big fun for me.

Though I do have my baseplate now I wanted to try my hands today at the rigging. First I did the four fixation cables for each of both funnels (I see now there are some small spots which needs some paint for fix) and afterwards just a small job at the stern mast. As I did learned from others for rigging you need to work from inside to outside. Feel like a spider now...



To be continued tomorrow. Need to get as far as possible - next week my holidays are ending and modelling time will get more sparse again

Nice start with the rigging Thomas

Cheers

Si

Simon, that rigging seems to me the most difficult part of the whole operation here. Either I sticked with my toothpick somewhere else with the glue or the rigging wire won´t stick at once (I tried streched sprue, 0,1 mm fishing line and 0,2 mm Uschi´s rigging wire). My Patience was really contested here to the maximum and I was only a twink of an eye distant to throw everything against the wall yesterday out of Desperation . Today I gave it a new effort and was able to rig the vessel.

There is surely always space for even more rigging - especially at the masts or at the davits for the two torpedoboats. But as everything is so small and fragile (even my poor patience) I let it as it is now and, hey as a bloody rookie I feel satisfied about how it is now.

This is how it Looks rigged now:








Now I just have to think how to fix that flags? I want to fix the decals onto a leadfoil but how can I create a strong enough rope for it?

Gentlemen, it took some time again for my next update but I was able to push the Project further toward near the finish. I completed the base today. Now there are just the national flags and some crew members missing until I can step over the finish line with this ship.

This are my efforts since last update: I did cut out a seabase out of Styrodur and sat the ship in the appropriate place inside


I did cut out some waves with a sharp cutter blade


and made a frame around out of thin Evergreen sheet


soft tissue was soaked in white glue and I covered the Surface with it in two layers. After this the surface was painted and drybrushed with different colors and airbrushed with gloss varnish several times.



Then it was time to make a sealike surface with acrylic gel in several layers - clear first, semiclear in some spots and final thinned white for some foam


And this are the final results of sea-scaping:





The two national flags were cut out of lead foil, bended and painted in the correct yellow Color. When dry I will add the kits decals at them.

Looking good, Thomas! That ocean base really brings the ship alive. I look forward to seeing how the flags turn out.

Thomas, Great looking base and funnel smoke, it really makes the model look like it is pushing it way through the water.

Great job Thomas,

The sea base and the funnel smoke give a feel of movement.

Cheers

Si

Fantastic work Thomas!

Great to see you've added smoke to the smokestacks too. This often overlooked in seascape dioramas!

@Mark, Simon and Russel: Thank you very much guys, very appreciated! I felt the need for smoke as it should be a lifelike Diorama. I tried out fine cotton wool, formed her in shape a bit and give her a spray with black color. After this I fixed everything and improved it to look realistic. I´m satisfied with it now.

@Tim: Thank you Tim. Regrettably BRONCO´s flag decals were a big dissapointment! Somehow they had a flaw: They were very stiff, absolutely no adhesive power and they crumbled very easily in a gazillion small parts so it was impossible to use them anymore... I had to try my hands in painting this difficult miniscule chinese blue-white dragon with a red tongue and the red point at the flag edge. From a distance it looks promising but don´t look with the magnifier glasses at them *hehe*

Gentlemen, this build reached its finish line! I painted and glued both flags on top of the masts and painted some about 30 figures for the ship. I could have painted 300 for a more appropriate crowded look at deck but my patience will surele leave me here. I manned mainly the outlook posts at bots masts and the upper decks.

I used men from Northstarmodel`s US Navy figure sets 1 + 2. The quality of these tiny figures are outstanding though difficult to work with as they are very closely together at their carrier which let me break some figures during sawing off some figures. Two crewmembers are also still MIA because of the carpet Monster and are not to be seen again until now.

This is the final result now of my efforts:






View to the ship´s stern


2nd upper deck


frontal detail view


The guys with the red topped hats are officers - the guy in the middle with the yellow sleeves is the Admiral.


detail view of the compass platform


detail view at the frontal barbette


detail view at the frontal main mast


All in all it was a very enjoyful build for me and I had a lot of fun to poke around at the chinese Internet sites to find some more facts about this ship. The difficult side at it was that there are many different photos and drawings of the ship at different times and everywhere you can see different Details. Also BRONCO´s and BLUE ADMIRAL´s instruction let you sometimes scratch your head as the instructions are sometimes contrary...

Is the model 100% historical realistic? I really don´t know but the end result is very satisfying for me. And if the audience had as much fun watching as me building everything is surely worth all efforts.

I want to thank again all spectators who watched and also commented this blog - you kept my Building Spirit high at all times. I hope we meet again at my next blog.

Bye Bye!
再见

Thomas

Thomas,

congratulations on commissioning this fine build!! She looks outstanding, and your work is crisp and clean to the last detail! Especially your crew brings her to life, fantastic effort to pair this little guys in that level of detail!

This is a fantastic build and I enjoyed watching your progress very much! Last but not least I fully concur with your statement about the historical correctness - one will never be able to tell for sure, and your result is absolutely convincing!

I'm looking forward to follow your next build!

Cheers,
Jan

Thomas

Great job, congratulations on commissioning. Thanks for sharing I have njoyed the ride.

Cheers

Si

Thomas,

Thank you for taking us through this most unusual and attractive build, and congtratulations on commissioning!

Thomas! Congratulations on your commissioning of the Dingyuen!

A very convincing depiction of her, especially with the addition of the crew!

Thanks for sharing, will be keeping an eye out for your next build!

Ahoy Thomas

A great build indeed.

Well done it looks superb on the base and with the figures too.

Cheers

Sean

Thank you very much gentlemen for all these positive comments for my third Surface ship until now - I do feel very honoured

I decided to stay a bit more with ship modelling and already chose my next "victim" - I will stay with 1:350 scale but this time a bit bigger ship . I will open my next block very soon here

Cheers

Thomas

Fantastic effort Thomas. I especially like the effort you made with the figures. I think it makes all the difference.

cheers
Michael