Tyre 332 BC

[Cryns]

Thank you so much gentlemen for the nice replies.

Did you thougth to create a new own manufacture-line or do you your work only for your own pleasure?

I wanted to make many ships and its just too much work for one lifetime to make them all in wood one by one. But once I manage to reproduce them, I will be happy to sell some copies too. But first I have to see if the small parts castings (mast and sail ) turn out as well as the hull.

Have you considered going into business? The professional looking end product would fly off the shelves.

Think you it's possible to produce one boat more as you need? I would be very interested on a purchase...

I love to own a resin copy of your work, so please have me in mind.

I really would like to buy one of these.

Thank you all so much for the interest and the encouragement. With some of you it would feel better for me to exchange it with your own sculpting and casting work, in stead of selling it to you for money. But first let me finish these two ships and add some proper sailers to it.

Mr. Berry you build that terrific Roman merchant ship. I found it on an interesting site, looks like an unfinished thread of yours:



http://www.planetdiecast.com/index.php? ... h&catid=13

I tried to trace this ship down, you wrote it was sold by Kai Fuhrmann. But I can't find it anymore? Do you remember what that ship costed?

How big is your working place when you are producing so many new forms, ships, figures and dioramas? I presume it has to be a garage or still a bigger space to store all materials....

I was asked this question many times before, Sansovino. But I probably have the smallest house of you all: 48 square metres, just one bedroom, no study or hobby room. In the historical centre of our city which is getting more and more crowded with tourists and very rich expats, a GARAGE for one car only would cost me as much as a whole farmhouse with land in the countryside of Niedersachsen.

This single parking lot for sale is the nearest from my house:
http://www.huizenzoeker.nl/koop/noord-h ... tails.html
Yes you read its price well: 75.000 euro's.

So this is what my 'garage' looks like:



It is one quarter of our livingroom. What you see is my wife's classic wooden diner table with four chairs.

[despertaferro]

Dear and admired Mr Cryns, your wife deserves 10 times all the best you can do for her in return!

I that was me, me dear wife (the sweetest and nicest person on normal circumstances) would ask for divorce in shorter time that I needed to pack all my belongings and leave the house in shame...
True that I live with her and our two daughters (17 and 24) and my survival depends on being totally silent and unnoticeable...

I would like to post some comments about your work but I'm running out of adjectives...

Warm regards

[dykio]

Next time my wife is complaining about the mess i made i will show her this picture
Also a question comes to mind... where do you eat?

What is even more impressive is that you achieve in this little workspace some of the most fantastic scrattchbuilding i have ever seen

[Kostis Ornerakis]

I was also after this ship ( Corbita ) some time ago. I even emailed at Kai Fuhrmann shop, but I was told that she is OOP.
I found something similar from Aer Moldova. You can see her here:
https://www.facebook.com/Aer-Model-studio-353606012546/
But some days ago I found this:
http://www.imperial-modellbau.de/
Then click: Master - Modellbau
I hope mr. Brune could help with this.

[Beano Boy]

My entire house is my working area,all except for one small cupboard ,
where we Mrs B,and i,hang up on a cloth rail at night to sleep! BB

[sberry]

Mr. Berry you build that terrific Roman merchant ship. I found it on an interesting site, looks like an unfinished thread of yours:



http://www.planetdiecast.com/index.php? ... h&catid=13

I tried to trace this ship down, you wrote it was sold by Kai Fuhrmann. But I can't find it anymore? Do you remember what that ship costed?

Dear Mr. Cryns,
sorry for the delay of my answer, I just read your post.
Yes, Kostis is right; this ship was produced by Andy Brune / Imperial Modellbau (and now Hagen). Perhaps you should ask him directly if it is still available. I think it was about 80 – 90 Euros then. To answer your question, I went into the depths of my email archive, and I was quite shocked to learn that I had ordered this ship already in 2004! And then it obviously took six long years until I used it in a diorama.
The WIP blog that you have found is the remnant of a site that once was called Toy Collector. After some re-naming and re-structuring of their site that was totally incomprehensible to me, I lost track and don’t know where the rest of my picture uploads may have gone.
About the alternative product made by AER, I can tell you only one thing: I knew announcements and rumors about its existence even back in 2004, when I bought the Brune ship, but I never have seen any retailer who actually would sell it.

[sansovino]

Mr Cryns, thanks a lot for your friendly permission to have a look to your work-place behind the curtains. I am really still more impressed on your work which is done in such a tiny space. I am still more impressed that your wife allows it. And you would have been really well organized to develop your projects there. Did you develop also a special storage system for your dioramas?

Amsterdam is really very expensive. I have read the advertisement of the garage - incredible! It seems that you are full blood urban citizen which has learned to live also in limited spatial circumstances. I am living in Berlin and I am still very happy to have 79 square meters - and a fixed working table which is sometimes not enough for my different projects.

[Kostis Ornerakis]

I have the Aer model studio ship.
The site is: http://www.aermodelstudio.narod.ru/newmodels.htm
and the email is at the bottom of the page: aer_mstudio@yahoo.com
But I have to contact many years, I don't know if the business still exists.

[Cryns]

Dear Friends,

Thank you so much for writing your very personal and interesting replies.

your wife deserves 10 times all the best you can do for her in return!

Dear despertaferro, my wife was very pleased to hear this from you and she is repeating your words since, every day again and again

I found something similar from Aer Moldova. You can see her here:
https://www.facebook.com/Aer-Model-studio-353606012546/
But some days ago I found this:
http://www.imperial-modellbau.de/
Then click: Master - Modellbau
I hope mr. Brune could help with this.

Kostis thank you so much for the links! Great research You are much better than me in using the internet I think. Aer Moldova was unknown to me though I already knew some of their ship models from internet pictures.

Already I met Andy Brune (Imperial Chief) from Hagen several times and I discussed with him how to cast figures in white metal. I planned to visit his studio in Germany somewhere this year. But I had no clue he is the designer and producer of that Roman merchantship. Our modeling world is small.

sorry for the delay of my answer, I just read your post.

Remember we are not in a hurry my dear mr. Berry! Your work and publishings are a very interesting source for me in different ways. But there is a little miscommunication between us now:
I do not want to buy that Roman merchant vessel from Andy Brune, I just wanted to know what price is asked for such a model casted in resin and white metal, to know what its worth, what people are prepared to pay for it or, when thinking back of the conversation Andy and I had, what people are NOT prepared to pay for such model.

Did you develop also a special storage system for your dioramas?

Dear Sansovino every unused corner of our house is stuffed with materials, models, boxes and chemicals. As long as my wife does not know exactly what is where and whats in the different containers, she will tolerate me.

[Félix]

Hello Mr. Cryns, and the other followers of the Forum too.

This is my first post as part of this group.

Took much time following your great work, and thank you for the information that's this has gone providing

Actually, I decided form part of this forum to be able to have access to you.

In fact, I have several months trying to imitate your walls for my personal use, but come me to great doubts as regards measures, techniques used to give shape to the foam, tools, and way to paint them.

For this reason I would like to ask you a favor, if you consider it appropriate, to ask for your help in this regard.

Not know if could provide information in such sense, or send some tutorial that I help. Although I suppose that have received many requests like this.

I perfectly know you are very busy now, and know your work at this time because I follow your progress closely.


By my part, I got carry to out the modeling of 2 sections of wall (one of them with the postern), and I would love that you see them, but I don´t know by now how send photos. And I intend to continue now with the towers.
But I have some doubts about, that I'd like to ask you for help.

1º.-Measures?.

My sections of wall measures are 8 cm. from the base until the wallwalk, and 3 cm. more parapet (11 cm. in total). And the width is 6 cm.. Can You tell me if yours have these measures?. Is a little complicated discover which are the measures accurate that your use to through only of the photos.

On the other hand, I would appreciate greatly that indicate me which are the measures of your first 5 towers (length, width and height).

2.- Colors?.

Would also appreciate you to tell me that the colors you've used for painting. Which is the color base and wich paintings have made the finish (dry brushes?).How to apply them.

I hope not bother or overwhelm you with my interest, and I reiterate my sincere thanks for your attention.

Indicate you that in all case is a huge pleasure to contact with you, and that not have words, that not have received already, to qualify and congratulate you for your work.

Best regards.

[Peter]

What a mess on that table!

I don't dare to ask but where do you eat?

[Cryns]

Dear Félix,

Welcome to our forum. And thanks for your interest in my work. You are welcome with your questions. I think the measurements you are using right now are fine to start with.

Because I received more questions from other members, I already planned to make a clear tutorial about how to cut buildings from massive blocks of foam but we have to wait until I start building these objects again. First I like to finish some more ships and figures. But for this moment I made and selected some pictures so you and others who are interested get some basic information to start with.

MEASUREMENTS
It all starts with the gaming system you want to use. Most 15mm to 30mm figure basing systems use 6cm wide and 2cm to 4cm deep.
My ancient artillery has 6x6cm bases so the INSIDE of the towers has to be a little bigger than that: 6.2cm x6.2cm.



My auxiliaries, bowmen and psiloi have 3cm deep bases so my parapets are A LITTLE WIDER (3.5cm) because bases projecting over the back of the parapet look disturbing.

MATERIALS
There are many different kinds of foam called styrofoam, styrodur, bluefoam, roofmate, floormate etc. Only some of them I find usefull for recreating rough stone objects.
1) traditional white styrofoam with big white balls: USELESS, the structure is too big and its not strong enough for small details.
2) floormate and roofmate styrodur or styrofoam thickness 5mm to 15cm produced for isolation of houses, colored blue, green or yellow. Many people use it but normally as plate work in thin boards (like cardboard). I think its structure is too dense and its not crispy enough to grind, file and sculpt it nicely. It is cheap, I sometimes find it between the garbage on the street.
3) architects blue foam is a type of styrodur I use.

Its mostly used by architects building maquettes and models and its for sale in modeling-, scale train- or artist shops. It is expensive and comes in flat boards or in blocks. But most important is: its surface can be sculpted upto 2mm deep.
4: A similar product like architects blue foam is purple foam, its crispy too with a rough structure.
5: A similar product called modeling foam is the most expensive of them all and is sold in artists shops for sculpting. It looks like artificial sand stone, it comes in yellow blocks.

So I use the Architects Blue Foam blocks. These have standard measurements of 10cm. Like 10x10x30 or 10x20x30.



As soon as I see such a block, I see a tower or a building inside of it:



It is very crispy and when cut with a sharp knive it looks like tuff stone or vulcanic stone with lots of small round holes in it:



If grinded or filed or sawn it looks like this:



It can also be pressed or rammed so it becomes more dense and smoother and then it looks like most other styrofoams.

TOOLS:
I never use a hot wire cutting machine. Instead I use a carpet cutting knive size XL with a 12cm long blade. This makes the buildings less sterile, more personal and lively. This is all you need for building a whole city:



A sharp pencil for drawing measurements with the transparent ruler.
Also the pencil is the main sculpting tool for making grooves between stones and bricks.
The XL knive (change blade after every cutting session otherwise the cut becomes messy)
The small knive for details.
The old worn out screwdriver without sharp edges and angles for sculpting the surface of stones and rooftiles.

CUTTING
I don't like gluing, I just do cutting and sculpting. Though this foam can be glued with white glue or POR (styrofoam glue). But glued joints can not be sculpted afterwards. You will always see them, even after painting. So even the rocks and supporting collumns are cut out of one single block.



So for a wallsection of 6cm wide I use the entire 10cm of the block for rocks and additional structures. The cutting is like sculpting in stone: the first cut is never the definitive cut. Start to cut away small layers and small sections with the big knive. Until you reach the final shape. This will keep you from miscuts that can never be undone.

MEASUREMENTS
My dimensions are influenced by bronze age architecture from Greece, Asia Minor and the Middle East: no wall has a right angle, its all a littlebit sloping and curving. My walls have no realistic proportions. In reality they often should be higher or much higher. And so they also should have been a little thicker.



All of my parapets are at 7cm hight. And so are all doors of connecting towers and so are steps going up to higher levels. So everything fits to everything.

Some towers have trapezoid shapes and are wider at the bottom and become smaller towards the top.



Make sure the tower wall below the connecting doors is in a straight angle because otherwise it does not fit the mutual wall section.

Crenelations (here rounded) are always cut from the same block.



The inside of the tower is removed by cutting a checkerboard pattern with the small knive and break away the small cubes with the screwdriver. The inside wallsurface is smoothened by cutting one more millimeter away with the big long bladed knive (cut vertically from center of the wall to both corners)

You will also experience the blade of the knive has to be bended pretty often during cutting away slices of foam from a surface. Because after bending the blade, the point of the knive does not touch the foam surface anymore. The point creates much damages during slicing when it is touching the surface.



This way of digging out the tower from the top (like the work in a quarry) leaves a very rough and messy bottom surface. There is two ways to make a smooth floor.
1: Press or ram it down with the back of the screwdrivers grip or a square piece of wood or iron. Again, this is only possible using the right type of crispy foam.
2: Cut a separate floor that is just a millimeter wider and deeper than the hole, make incisions like planking or tiling in it and press it down to the bottom. Because this floor is a little too big it shapes itself perfectly into the shape of the interior walls.



Rooftiles are sculpted with the screwdrivers blade.

Next week: painting blue foam with acrylics.

[Cryns]

Dear Dykio, I almost forgot to tell you how happy I was to see you are still a visitor of our forum and you also participate in the group build for Figz 2017 so we will meet soon again.

Next time my wife is complaining about the mess i made i will show her this picture
Also a question comes to mind... where do you eat?

Peter freshed up my memory:

I don't dare to ask but where do you eat?

On the lounge table thats positioned about 1 meter away from that chemicals table.

[Félix]

Thank you Mr. Cryns for your attention. The truth is that the measures that I indicate not are very different of which personally had calculated and pointed in my block of notes. In any case, I will study carefully all your instructions, since they are highly instructive for me.

I repeat that I deeply appreciate all your attention, and am very pending of any information you may be providing.

[MABO]

Thanks once more for the detailed informations. Those walls and houses are every time an eye-candy for me. I have written that before, but it could be written twice.

[Cryns]

Those walls and houses are every time an eye-candy for me.

Thank you Mabo

The truth is that the measures that I indicate not are very different of which personally had calculated and pointed in my block of notes.

Yes, congrats with your measurements, it is almost exactly like mine

2.- Colors?.

Would also appreciate you to tell me that the colors you've used for painting. Which is the color base and wich paintings have made the finish (dry brushes?).How to apply them.

Dear Felix,

These are the four basic acrylic colors I use for painting mudbrick and limestone walls and buildings:


I try to give you the names in Spanish too because colors are always confusing in translation:
a) Buff titanium (titano beige incarn)
b) Yellow ochre (ocre amarillo)
c) Raw sienna (siena natural)
d) Raw umber (sombra natural)

Buy it in huge quantities (like flasks of halve liters) because you need lots of it. They come from any artist shop. I don't prefer any specific brand or type, I just choose a brand that sells many different NATURAL COLORS.
Of course you can make these colors yourself by mixing white, yellow, red and black but buying natural colors safes a lot of time, it keeps you from mistakes and makes it much more easy to add objects in the same color tones later on.



Use sturdy pighare large brush (0,5 to 2 cm wide square tip, used normally by oil painters and a soft pencil brush for corrections and details.



For applying to the blue foam I use no primer, this foam is rough enough for the acrylic to adhere to it.



1) Basic color is RAW UMBER, its close to black but in fact its brown.
Brush all over the object. When its wet, it shines and you can not see if it covers all blue foam properly.
2) After drying it becomes almost matt and now you see many spots of blue foam that have not been covered. Cover these again, with a smaller hard brush. Most important are window and doorholes, grooves, in fact all depressions in your sculpture.
3) Drybrush all of the object with a large pighair brush using RAW SIENNA.
Brush it with force so all little holes in the stone are filled up. Only windowholes, doorways, grooves and deep corners stay raw umber.
4) Drybrush all of the object with a large pighair brush using YELLOW OCRE.
But now in a smoother way so the projecting parts of stones become yellow ocre and all depressions in the stones stay raw sienna.
5) Use a soft small pencil to give separate stones separate colors like granite grey, brickred or sandbrown. This depends on the style of building and the geological circumstances of where the stones were quarried. For not to lose the already achieved effect of 2 drybrushed layers, for these separate stones you should add water to the acrylic paint so it becomes translucent and it works like aquarel paint.
6) Drybrush BUFF TITANIUM over all of the object. First time very smooth and gentle. This brings all the different separate stone colors back to one overall look. But to achieve an effect of very light travertin-stone, you may have to add several drybrush layers of buff titanium.
7) If you like to make smooth marble looking stone, just add more layers of paint, it will fill up the tiny bubble holes in the blue foam.
8.) If you like to have rough tuff stone with lots of vulcanic gass holes, only use acrylic paint mixed with water from the very first dark layer on. This may create problems with sticking to the blue foam. So paint raw umber twice. But you preserve the structure of the foam this way.
9) Use a small soft pencil brush for corrections of stone elements and dark grooves.
10) Create some extra 3D effects by adding light layers of paint to upper side of stones and dark transperent layers to underside of stones: this also means: paint the bottom of a horizontal groove between two stone layers lighter and the upper side of the groove darker.





You don't have to finish it with varnish. And you don't need a matt finishing since the semi matt acrylic paint becomes matt as soon as you start to drybrush it with secondary layers.



Additional colors:

In fact I use more colors:
Number 5 in the row above is Burned Sienna (Tierra de siena quemada) which looks red, for mixing with raw sienna to make all red tones in mudbrick, red stone and roof tiles)
Number 6 in the row is Burned Umber (Sombra quemada) looks brown, I use it for separate stones.
Number 1 in the row is Titanium White (Blanco titanio) is used to make buff titanium lighter and for 3D effect but I never use it as purely white.



Also I use blue or green acrylics for mixing: these colors can be usefull to adjust red or yellow tones and makes it less colorfull.

Grey can be created by mixing with buff titanium and raw umber which gives a nice grey brown rock tone. If thats too brown for your taste, add blue or white or real black to it. So it becomes flat grey'.

That's it for the moment. Good luck with painting!

[Beano Boy]

Splendid Work! Mr. Cryns. I guess for many it would be avoiding a foaming mess,just to be able to buy one off the peg,and ready for painting. After all not all budding artists are into scratch building,but would take delight I`m sure in painting one of your unique pieces of creative art. In that opinion I am most sincere.

I was thinking which is often dangerous for me. Yes thinking of a mould made from your latest piece. However moulds are expensive to fill up with whatever,and would be much to heavy. Then I rethought again and came up with what I would call the solution. Expanding Foam! A mould filled up with expanding foam. Why budding artists would be queuing up at FIGZ,to paint one.
Yes crazy idea I know.

Placing that aside now,it is your boat that interests me much more,because I just admire it. It was that type of boat I drew at school a thousand years ago it seems in the history class. A class I must add I hated with a passion,it being so darn right boring,but I liked to draw so in that case I liked it a little bit. Yes the boat I always remember,a Roman trader upon the Med. Anyway my friend you are doing well since you landed upon this Forum,and I kinda like all your stuff.
Are you planning to do anything at FIGZ,this year? BB

[Félix]

Very grateful really Mr. Cryns.
Will try to follow your instructions, which I will take possibly many time for a rookie as I.

As soon as I possible I will try to show pictures of my progress and will keep asking you for my doubts, which I hope you do not mind.

Thank you very much.

[Cryns]

Thank you BB and Felix.

Expanding Foam! A mould filled up with expanding foam.

A very refreshing idea: I suppose you have isolation foam to fill up space between double brick walls in mind. If this would work succesfull, it must already been used a lot in our hobby, since traders still sell heavy, expensive and massive resin houses. But I will try it anyway and ask my chemicals provider here in town about alternative materials. Thanks for the suggestion BB!

Are you planning to do anything at FIGZ,this year?

Sure, different ideas, I will share these soon in the Figz 2017 thread.

I will try to show pictures of my progress and will keep asking you for my doubts, which I hope you do not mind.

If you start your own thread I will try to follow it step by step and try to answer your specefic questions there too.

Back to ancient ship building.

Two weeks ago I ended up with making a partly reefed sail:



I was not satisfied with the result:



Ancient ceramics show merchant ships with reefed sails fastened to the yard:



Look at the two long corner tips hanging all the way down:



I don't understand how this is possible: these ships had square sails. How can the tips be soo long?

A real size replica shows much shorter tips:



This ship of course is in a harbour so this must be fully reefed.
But full sail almost looks like fully reefed at the ancient ceramics:



In real life practice it looks like this:



Another ship even has the sail puffed up ABOVE the top yard:



At full sea that looks like this:



Modern reconstructions show those long tips again. The surface of the sail is made very small so it can sail safely without pulling over in very strong winds.



Professional model makers tried to copy this partly reefed sail. But most of them do not get that specific ancient effect with the very long pointed tips.





And if they do, there is no wind in the sails, so no motion in it, no energy. Its a partly reefed dead sail.



So I went looking for a way to get wind in the reefed sails. I made a sail with a trapezoide shape so I had some extra lengt for the long tips:



With needle and wire I recreated the system for the reefing lines, soaked it in white glue&water, and reefed it into its ultimate sail tip position:



To get the sail puffed up by the wind I came up with the idea to hang the sail upside down, put a plastic bag filled up with sugar in it and let it dry over a night until the white glue stiffened the fabric of the sail. A problem of the supporting foam mold getting glued to the fabric did not appear now since plastic foil does not stick to white glue.



Next morning the wind was permenently in the sail:





My collection of glass beads:



Cut them in halve as wooden or lead reefline rings:



Sail, yard, rings and lines must all be casted together to safe a lot of work for the reproductions.



Temporary clay mold:



Supporting walls and foam fill ups so safe rubber:



Brushing some silicone rubber into the foldings of the sail to avoid air bubbles:



Casting with a limited amount of rubber:



Pressing the first supporting foam piece down raises the rubber surface level:



Pressing the second supporting foam piece down raises the rubber surface level to the maximum height of the supporting walls:



Six hours later one halve of the mold has hardened:



The sail comes out almost intact, lost just some rings that have to be re-attached. But now there is a big problem that I was aware of before starting: the sail does not fit into the first mold anymore because the fabric foldings create very complicated undercuttings.

So instead of placing the sail into the undercutting spaces in the mold, I have to lay it on top of it. Because it pops up at all edges and corners now, I have to fasten it to the mold with pins. Notice the small wires I want to conserve for the master ship model.



The balls on the pins create a problem in the second mold so I replace them by metal wire clips:



These will be captured in the shape of the mold too but will look like a piece of line or rope:



Casting the second mold shell, adding a foam piece and press it down with a construction to reach the exact level. Otherwise the foam will float upwards out of the liquid rubber:



Six hours later I have two halves. The new one has crept around and behind the sail:



After removing lots of this flash I have two almost perfect halves, except that the casts of the sail will be extra heavy and thick in the central, valved area:



Both halves are treated with talcum powder to prevent the casted surface from air bubbles:

There will be tension, even force, on both ends of the yard once the sail gets fastened to the ship by wires. For this reason the yard is strengtened by a very thin piece of bamboo:



To attach wire to the sail tips, brass wire loops are inserted:



Syringing the resin into the lowest point of the bottom mold shell. The air escapes trough ventilation ducts at all corners of the sail:



The first cast came out pretty well: what looks like blue holes in the sail are actually small pieces of the silicone rubber mold that got stuck into the resin and were teared off during removing it from the mold:



The most difficult area to cast is the yard because its highest up and farest away from the injection hole. I cut another six airducts to make it more easy for the resin to leak into the yard area:



After some trimming the metal loops get visible:



I casted 8 copies of which 2 are almost perfect and 4 others have to be pimped up and repaired before using them:

[stenfalk]

This thread is a permanent source of inspiration, always worth seeing and readable.