The search to the Endeavour --- Behind the Scenes

[Wolf Knight]

After popular demand, lets have a look behind the scenes 

Ok you already know the sails are from German ebay seller, vallote (bastelvallote). The sail design is his copyright, as he states so with a polite letter to the buyer.









The sail is printed on a canvas like material/fabric and to make one sail, you need two sides, thus, two pieces of the fabric:







Now, vallote's instructions state that you need to cut this carefully with a good fabric scissor and sew the two fabrics back to back to make a two side sail. If not done carefull, the edges may come appart. Thankfully one of aunts has a sewing machine  Must also be carefull when placing the sail as they may be torn by an abrupt pull or something, at the already cut holes. The result is magnificent!!!!

[Wolf Knight]

Painting the Enterprise: I may no be too good with details and little items but I sure am proud I can paint spray a large item 

So here is the Enterprise already painted last summer:



I dismantled the whole ship, removed all accessories and painted all sides of the deck with the following spray paint:



I applied three thin coats of the spray from a few centimetres distance, let one side dry for about an hour and sprayed the other side same way. Finally, I hanged the ship from a hanger on the bow and covered any unpainted areas. I really love the result, but now I wish I had better sails for this ship  , the original ones dont look so good on it now...:









I also wish I asked Arnaud to design side transfers as he suggested, but I did not have the side stickers to send him a scan of them for the dimentions 

[Wolf Knight]

Which brings us to the transfers Arnaud designed:









I scanned the original stickers and send them to Arnaud and after a few emails concerning the dimentions, he presented me with these great designs!! I wasn't sure what I needed so I let it up to him. He came up with a different animal for each vessel  But as I said earlier, now I wish we also had some side stickers designed with a yellow wavy or curvy pattern as you suggested, Arnaud.

[Wolf Knight]

And last but not least, the one question everybody asks anxiously... here is the water I used:



That's right! A motivo background paper!!  Found in any hobby or art material and supply shop ... Simple, isn't it? 

Hope you enjoyed this thread boys and girls 

[Wesley Myers]

I really like the blue colour you used for your ships.  It is better than the Playmobil colour.  Especially considering it is for a naval (navy) ship - not a pirate or a trader.

[conniefrere]

Hope you enjoyed this thread boys and girls 

Loved it, thank you for posting. Again some nice pictures and you gave a lot of inside tricks for making customs and nice background settings for photographs.

[Hadoque]

Thanks for the detailed pics and explanation, Panos! 

Concerning the schooner-sails:
How did Vallote describe to put the 2 sides together? If your aunt hadn't had a sewing machine, would the sailsides have had to be sewed together manually? Or glued together?

Concerning sidestickers for the "Enterprise":
You could buy some from Vallote... I've bought several he designed on my request (and he has them also listed on ebay), and I'm gonna buy some additional ones soon as we agreed, quality is certainly very good (and there is one design I'm really wild about).

But I'm now in contact with Arnaud as well, to make some (more or less historically accurate) stickers for my "Golden Hind" (based on a model how Francis Drake's ship really looked. Still have to get back to him and send him a few pics...
I don't have a scanner, but I do have original 3940- and 5135-stickers, so I'll send some to Arnaud on loan so he can scan them. 

And the one who provides the best stickers at a fair price, will get all future orders after that!

[Hadoque]

Concerning the paint for the Enterprise:

Did you polish the ship's deck befor applying the paint? Or did you just clean it with some dirt/dust-removing detergent? And did you lay/spray a primer,before spraypainting the blue colour? Any lac afterwards as a protective layer?


I'm planning to spraypaint a few ships too. Not much experience though, so first some trials on a few wrecks. Then a 4290's red hull into brown probably, and then next summer or later (when the weather is good outside or I have again enough space to work with spraypaint and big parts inside) a Unicorn-class trimaster I started cutting-work on a few months ago (and if the paintwork goes well, the Unicorn herself will get repainted too probably).

I want realistic looking paints for these ships, so I have bought some different shades of brown. Problem is I ony find these specific colours in Gloss and High-Gloss  in the shops in my area. (see pics). Would these be fine , or are they too glossy and should I try to find semi-gloss ones?

[Wolf Knight]

I can't find vallotte's instructions, probably threw them away, but they did say what I wrote earlier ''saw the sails back to back''. Its not easy to saw them on hand, probably impossible, because the fabric comes appart easily once cut. But, my aunt did say it is also possible to glue them together, let them dry and then cut them. I now wish he had some 3940 sails I could use for the Enterprise...

As for the transfers, I stand by Arnaud  I have a few more projects running with him so I may ask him to design the side stickers. If you do send him the original 3940 stickers I can ask him to design some transfers for the Enterprise  Thanks for letting me know!!

For the painting: I just washed (warm water, dishwasher liquid) the deck and then just spray the paint. Nothing else. The lac for protection sounds a good idea, but I am not very interested in it. The paint is pretty much scratch-free, meaning you can easily play with the klickies and items on them, but not scratch them with a knife on purpose.

The spray colours you have are not glossy, otherwise they would say ''glossy'' on that little white sticker, but they are bright (brillant). You may need to experiment with the colour you want your ships to have, but if you dont want them to look bright, then these are not the ones you need. I'd say you need to go for ones that dont say nor ''brillant'' neither ''glossy'', but then again I am not sure what you need to achive so you have to experiment. I wasn't sure either, but the lovely young lady at the hobbystore was more than willing to explain all that..

Hope these answers helped, (did I forget something?  ) and looking forward to your projects 

[Hadoque]

The spray colours you have are not glossy, otherwise they would say ''glossy'' on that little white sticker, but they are bright (brillant).

  There's "HG" printed before the colour-name, which means "High Gloss" ... so, what do you mean they aren't glossy? 
I'd like the ships to look as close to original Playmobil as possible, so I guess I would better use  "mat" or "silk gloss" paints... But I've searched and searched and I the only brown spraypaint I can find is "choclotate in "mat"...not one other tint of brown in "mat" or "silk  gloss".

Does anyone know if you can spraypaint a "mat" or "silk gloss" lacquer over a "high gloss"-spraypainted ship, to make it look less "high gloss"?


Oh, and we lost our last hobby-store in the wide area a few years ago... it closed down because people aren't interested anymore. Now there are only supermalls left, and those are aimed at construction-painting (like repainting your kitchen or bathroom), and the sellers have no clue about which paints are most suitable on plastic toys... The spraypaint-stock they carry is also very limited