Ghibli: Earthsea (Sparrowhawk's Boat)

Greg Baker
Just a couple of little Studio Ghibli builds I had hanging around on the side of the workbench. I just love this little Zvezda rowboat. This is the 3rd one I've built (well, fourth, but I glued two of them together at the middle... does that count?).

People give Tales of Earthsea a bit of flack, and it might not be on par with the other Studio Ghibli movies, but I'll give it its due as part of my 1/72 collection.

Greg Baker
I do. As I said, it's not quite up to snuff in regards to the rest of the Ghibli library, but that's a pretty high bar to reach. There's a few disjointed bits in terms of the plot, but if you just decided to sit back and enjoy the ride, it's fun.

Greg Baker
Thanks for keeping tabs Roland. I'm not going to kill myself trying to make this boat look like an exact copy from the movie. I added an extension to the bow, moved the mast further towards the stern, and added the weird eyes on the bow. I cut the furled sail part and liberated the sail... and then used a bit of leftover plastic sail from my Nina -> Arabian Dhow Tintin project. I never throw away the unused bits... you never know when they'll come in handy.

Matthew A
Sail looks good

Greg Baker
A bit of black stretched sprue (donated by my black bunny tomcat kit) and we have some rigging, this more or less bringing this little project to a close. I just have to figure out a base for it

Chaz Gordon
Blue & white Plasticene for a wave effect coming "out of the page" on the base?

Matthew A
Owch hope that rigging holds up over it's voyage to the New World

Kerry COX
Ah. ! 👍 The 'gentle' arts of model making. 🙂
boats and their ilk are such a brilliant medium to work with. 🙂
The 'Endeavour' was my effort and I loved every minute of it except the rigging. 🙂
Looking so nice Greg. 👍 👍 👍

Greg Baker
Chaz - I'm thinking silicone - which I've used several times on my Tintin models (strobez.ca/wp/index...1-72-scale-projects/) should do the trick. I've also got a small toy boat from "Ponyo" to do, so it'll likely be a 2-for-1 deal. 🙂

Matthew - That thought was not lost on me as I was attaching some fiddly bits of stretched sprue. Oh, well, if I finish it and take pictures... I can re-assemble later, right?

Kerry - I really love this little Zvezda row boat. I've managed to build it 3 times already for different projects. I've dabbled with an Arabian Dhow, and I have plans to turn a 1/110 scale HMS Bounty into a 1/72 scale Pirate Ship... and hopefully a 1/100 Soleil Royal into a 1/72 scale Unicorn. I like it as well, it's a nice change from airplanes and tanks... but that rigging... 😉

Greg Baker
Annnnd... done. 🙂

Chaz Gordon
Wow greg, that water's amazing, I believe a How-to is in order.

Greg Baker
The how-to on the water simply couldn't be easier. Take clear silicone caulking, squeeze a big enough splooge into a paper cup... add 2-3 drops of clear Tamiya X-23 Clear Blue acrylic paint and/or 1-2 drops of X-25 Clear Green acrylic paint... stir like crazy (careful it's STICKY) and then lather it down wherever you want. I usually prep the surfaces (base/model) with Vaseline to act as a removal agent.

One thing, It's difficult to get really calm water. The best bet to try that is simply use a big enough spatula (wood popsicle stick?) to get it down as soon as the colour is mixed and then LEAVE IT ALONE. It's quite sitcky, so it can be hard to smear properly, and it's one of those "doesn't get better, only worse" kinda things. As it dries (quickly) it stars to clump, so that can be good for making choppy waves and what not, but hard for smooth sailing.

I've also used yellow and smoke colours to make muddy amazon-river-like water effects. The opaque acrylic paint works as well, but can leave some interesting streaks. I've also used red and orange to make small fire effects.

Spanjaard
beautiful as usual 🙂