My first CAD designed ship-sorta!

[CMDRTED]

It's been awhile since I contributed something to the field besides "sage advise" and general supporting us troops. I always had a hankering to design model ships, and it was this drive that got me into the paper model world. When I was a kid in S. Phila. we didn't have a bunch of bucks to buy the big plastic things from Revell and Auroura so I turned to paper. My first ships were simply coloured silouettes, cut out and place on a cardboard stand. We used to "torpedo them" with those soft pellet z guns. In 6th grade a nun was teaching us solid geometry and had us cut out cones cubes cylinders etc, so I got it into my head these can be stacked and shrunk etc into things resembling turrets superstructure etc. I got an A that year! My first true 3d ships had little to no shear lines or gracefull hulls. The superstructures weren't bad just the hulls. None of those early ships survived. I built a few while on submarine patrols many years ago, then came schools and hobbies took a back burner. In the lst 5-6 years I rediscovered the hobby and was amazed that the world had "caught up with me"! In truth I hadn't a clue there was a world wide card model industry. A couple years back I designed an Evarts class DE from just the 2 view drawings and alot of hand designing and painting and trial and error. This beauty survives and is in 1/400 scale. To keep with my first commercial venture into card ships from JSC. Here's some pics with my first commercial ship model the JSC Hood also in 1/400...

[CMDRTED]

My next forray came after reading Hornblower and Aubry/Maturin. I had to desing a sailing ship model to visualize some of the action; "coming about", "man the braces" etc. I bought up some wood ship model planes and books about technique and used paper instead of wood strips. Ibought some "spiling curves, french curves, etc and built up a little cutter from the US Revolution the Lee. I started on a similar sloop and the Nina, but they are on perpetual back burner for now. Here are some pics of the sloops hull showing the frameing technique and the finished Lee. Both were done by hand and hand instruments, they are almost all paper except the blocks and rigging, and a couple wire rings for rigging etc..

[CMDRTED]

Now that the longest intro is done, I'm kinda amazed to present the first steps into a sort of CAD designed model, I'll keep the name etc. Until I commit to which ship in the class. I used Paintshop pro, a scanned 2 view image, and a heck-ov-a lot of trial and error. I have Rhino but am overwhelmed every time I try to fire the damn thing up. For colouring and quick edit, cloneing I use a very old photo edit program. I have copied the thing onto a disc and load it into every computer since the first.
Here are some prelim pics, the first showing the 2nd gen hull with deck pieces and the aft hull sides. No it won't be green, and yes it is only a waterline kit. I kinda like modeling waves etc from acrylic gel. The 2nd pic has a 3rd gen deck top with just a llittle red added to the wooden deck. The 3rd is the rounded bottom/buttocks section aft. I had to use an orange peel design to get it gently rounded curved at the waterline. The 4 th pic is a close up of the gen 2 aft deck with some 'xperimental' mushroom vents. I use a technique I nicknamed "forced perspective" for a lot of the deck and other details. The pieces are flat but from just the right amount of shadeing some of these pieces look 3d enough, see pic 5. The scale is 1/400, but there is enough detail (Darwin) to enlarge to 1/250. I'm just not up to building that big... Yet!

[CMDRTED]

Pic 5 just wouldn't upload so I saved it for this series. The other pics are the prelim fwd superstructure and fwd deck top with a gun tub for S&Gs. I'll try the next gen formers and fwd hull tomorrow, I forgot to add a little fwd deck shear. Kudos to the correct class ID. Hints, not a ship of the line when designed, slower than the Cutty Sark, fought in WW2. She had an interesting mix of engines and a lot of various armaments...

[NOBI]

I admire your talent, both build and design skill...Great job on that ships

[Barry]

Looking very good Ted

[kooklik]

Wonderful works , can't belive that made of Paper !!
Thanks for sharing Ted.
BR.
----kooklik----

[Golden Bear]

Wow, Ted, you've been busy. Thanks for sharing pictures of everything. I love your work!


Carl

[Don Boose]

That early DE was beautiful, Ted. And so are the other ships. Truly impressive work!

I'm enjoying this fascinating thread. My mind is still too numb from the final push to finish my book (sent off to the editor yesterday) to make a guess on the ship, but I'll try later when the fog clears.


Don

[lee4752]

Great waves. Maybe you could post a thread to show us how you do it.