This thread goes back quite a while, when I was trying to construct the hull of a Dutch Eastindiaman according to the Resolutions of the Heeren XVII of 1697. I reported how I discovered that computerprograms changed the design I derived from the Resolutions and how I abandoned ship when I found out I had not made the shape I wanted. I did not completely abandon ship however, because I gave it a second try, only to find out that I made a beginners mistake and ended up with a model with stem and stern under different angles. I threw it in the dustbin. You can see it here on top of a pile with other products. The lowermost is the first attempt.
I made a third hull with better results and put it on a shelf because I thought it was too big for my house. But sometimes things change...
As you know my son makes photoshop paintings of my models and although we have a lot of fun doing it, we somehow felt the need to bring a man-of-war in the scenes.
From its shelf the first attempt to build the Eastindiaman still looked at me in a remorseful way, as I never could bring myself to destroy it. I decided to give the model another chance, because though it was not precisely what I wanted, I did like its shape.
I changed the aft part of the ship, being too 'modern', by raising the upper line to allow for more accommodation. The ship will carry 64 guns and though I do not have a particular ship in mind, it is obvious that this model is going to represent a ship from the late 50's. As you all know the Dutch were beaten in the first Anglo-Dutch war (1652-1654) due to the fact that they did not have the heavy battleships England did have. This resulted in an ambitious fleet building program for bigger ships. This is one of those ships.
Changing things in a design never goes without problems elsewhere. This morning I had to admit that a higher aft part of the ship, making it look more old-fashioned, has to be combined with a longer beak-head. So my next job will be cutting off the present beak-head and mounting another, longer one. I admit that this is an unconventional way of model building, but in the end the result will show I'm right. This model will bring us a lot of nice 'paintings'.
Sorry for the bad pictures and for not showing much of the technique of building, but it is all described in previous threads.