The Death of Nelson

Hi all!

Well... my greatest work, complete!

For those of you who saw that keep up with the blog, you may have seen my plans mentioned a few months back about a Christmas gift for my father.  My father, who was the one who started my love of toy soldiers with plastic Afrika Corps sets and amazing handmade forts, is a HUGE naval history guy, and like all naval history guys is obviously a fan of Lord Nelson.

So I thought I'd do a Christmas present for him based on Lord Nelson!

I've done a few miniature based Christmas gifts before... there is, of course, my Harry Potter gift for my wife (the only 25mm Harry and friends I've ever seen) and an AWI display for my father in law, but this was a pretty huge project compared to those.  It consisted of upwards of 20 figures, equipment, and most of all touched on a part of a period I know NOTHING about.  This made it very hard, and in the end I really had to go with display attention to detail instead of historical attention to detail.  For example, I had all of the blocks and tackle and line for rigging the guns (my boss is a ship model builder) but in the end it was just too much for me to tackle (no pun intended!)  Also there are fewer decks than the actual Victory, the colors might not be right, the decks are FAR too tall (this was on purpose... my hands are big and clunky and I was afraid of working in too tight a space) so... well, cut me some slack as far as the accuracy of the model:)

I did work in a lighting element... or two, actually.  First, in the bottom of the scene I rigged a yellow light that focuses on Nelson to draw the eye, as if there is a lamp above him.  The top photo is a shot, completely in the dark, with only that light on.  The photo does NOT do it justice:)

I also rigged up some flashing orange and red lights on the OUTSIDE of the ship INSIDE the box, which, when flashing, look like artillery fire outside of the ship.  It is hard to capture on film, but at least you can get an idea.

Anyway... let's get to some photos!

Here is the whole scene, with the front removed.

Here is the top deck, with the men preparing for a boarding action.

The first gun deck.  Love the powder monkey figure, even if he isn't very "kid" looking.

The next gun deck.

The orlop, with Nelson being attended to by his officers and doctor.

The whole scene, closed up.

And here is a shot of the whole thing with the lights on and low light outside... unfortunately, because of the shutter speed, the outside just looks red.  With the bare eye it actually flashes and looks like cannon thundering away.

So, that is my Christmas gift for my dad!  Hope he, and you all, like it!:D

Oh, and coming up... some fun ACW news!  Don't worry, I haven't forgotten you guys!:)