Finally a little dream came true, the Nautilus landed on my bench. After having seen the first test shots, some other WIP and having a soft spot for steampunk related things of course, this was a "must have".
The kit itself is based n Greg deSantis' drwaings, who is a conceptional artist that won many awards. It features highly detailed plastic parts, comes with PE parts, masks for the windows (!) and last but not least a squid base.
Here the fun starts...
A table full of parts...
BUILDING THE BASE
The base itself is a tropical root and I got it from a nearby garden center. Sea shells and cut peacock feathers were used for the decoration, as well as some grass flakes, meant for scale trees etc. Some red fibres (for car carpets for example) are supposed to be algae.
On the rear side, theres a little cave, maybe Im gponna build something in there too. Most important thing was - by chance - that the sduid fit perfectly (!) in the dent on the upper side of the base. Didnt expect that, sometimes youre just lucky.
THE SQUID
...is perfectly designed. The tentacles arent just some parts, theyre designed to hold the ship later without rework. The squid was painted in dark grey primer, violet and scarlet red followed, final touches were done with dark brown washing. The eye was painted wet-in-wet by using light buff & white for the outer area, Nato black with some blue & very light blue for the reflectations.
You have nailed it 
