ATLANTEAN SUBMARINE
Adventures of a middling modeler.
In George Pal’s 'Atlantis, the Lost Continent' (1961), a Greek fisherman, Demetrios, rescues a shipwrecked woman who proves to be Princess Antillia of Atlantis; when he insists on taking her home (beyond the Pillars of Hercules), the pair are intercepted at sea by Atlantis’s signature craft and a symbol of their unholy superscience: a giant fish-shaped submarine that surfaces like a sea creature and carries them into the hidden civilization. I saw this at the theater on first release and while I was not overly impressed by the film there were elements that I did like. Along with the death ray (which I'm also working on: viewtopic.php?t=127043), this fish-like submarine was one of them:
Effects supervisor Arnold Gillespie's miniature effects of the sea, submarine and the approach to Atlantis are probably the best things about this potboiler.
For more about the film and the sub see this entry from 'Model Ships in the Cinema': https://www.modelshipsinthecinema.com/2 ... -1961.html
After all these years I was delighted to discover that David W Roesler offers a 3D printed kit of it patterned by Shawn Nagel. Life's had its challenges of late including vision changes and pain in my hands from overuse. I wanted to do a quick satisfaction build which didn't quite work out as I had hoped.
The kit has only two pieces:
An easy build right? Unfortunately, the join in my kit was nowhere near as nice as the one seen here:
I should have taken a picture of my nasty joint, but I was too busy fixing it. Anyhow, this necessitated me spending A LOT of time cleaning up and filling it. Once repaired, I had to scribe the panel line back in. This would have more successful had I done it before the Milliput had fully dried. Lesson learned. I used the rubber band as a scribing guide:
As with so many of my kits from dodgy films, I felt no compulsion to adhere to the film's paint job. I wanted a rich, intense scheme that looked suitably ancient and considered bronze but finally settled on brass with hints of gold.
After priming with Tamiya enamel aerosol I applied a coat of Mr Hobby 12 Matt Black (I use matt black as a basis for all metal paint jobs) then sealed with Tamiya aerosol matt clear. I then drybrushed Mr Color 219 Brass with touches of Tamiya X-12 Gold Leaf and some Game Color silver on edges. I tried adding some Model Color Verdigris Glaze as per the film miniature, but it didn't look right so it was removed.
The stand is painted in Tamiya X-14 Sky Blue and the lettering is in the same brass color as the submarine.
The final build up is reasonable being the result of as much time and effort as I was prepared to give it:
It's a nice addition to my 'Fantasy Sub Fleet', soon to be joined by Gotengo (Aragon):
Finally, here's an AI video created by Doug Reid using Shawn Nagel's buildup. About 1/3 of the way through you can see Shawn had a similar issue with the dreaded seam: https://www.facebook.com/reel/1292588456072863.
