SPA Modeler

I'm pleased to put this one out there because to me it shows that a small kit at a large scale can be just as much of a goal as a big kit....etc.

Oh I like that!!!

Thanks, Carlos.
I really wanted, as a sailor, to make the thing dynamic.
Also to build it without all of the crud that movies and such have added, like the shields on the rail (funeral ships) and the dragon heads (bedposts at the site of above).
Really fast little ships, sailed by real pros.

That is a great one! The sail looks really good!

I like the men onboard, would be nice to see some closer pics of them.

- Kari

Very nice executed, never seen tell-tales on the sail of a viking ship. You're absolutely right regarding the shields and dragon heads, without those clichés it looks far more realistic.

Though "Vikings" is one of my favourite TV series...

That is spectacular! A real beauty. As you said, real pros sailed there. Took some cohonies to go to sea with these. Nice addition.

Wow that’s strange – I was only looking at one of these kits the other day and thinking it would look pretty cool – yours looks superb.

Did it come with the sails and the figures?

Thank you for the responses.
This is a really swell kit. It's a very accurate model of the Gokstad ship on display in Oslo (bucket list trip).
I added the little knee brackets between the deck beams and the thwarts, and replaced the spars with wood ones. Mostly OOB otherwise.
The kit sail was a vac formed monstrosity that matches the other style of sail seen in the few rock carving drawings of these ships, with the diamond pattern of seaming the various panels of material. With a hysterical decal of a "viking", horned helmet and all, gurning!
There's so much interesting stuff to read about Medieval ships, and so little hard information. Viking sails were "probably" wool, and were made on looms of the time that were about 1 meter wide. Hence the rows of fabric in my sail. There's a fragment of what was probably a sail, found in a church restoration back in the early 20th C. Most likely a sail as it had an eyelet woven in one corner.

The red color was probably done with madder dye, something still used.

I laid out the sail on a piece of vellum paper that had a little tooth to it.


Base coated the madder parts with black and then red acrylic.



I did get a little crazy with all of the reef point lines, clews and sheets, plus making 9th C blocks, seizes and splices. But hey, it was a blast.



My little sailors were made up with Milliput or whatever that clay is that hardens in the oven. They are definitely 3 footers. I looked around for some 1/64 vikings, wargames stuff etc. But i really didn't want to throw another $ 40 at a $ 29 model.

But I like dragon's heads and shields...



I would love to have this one day...

I'd roll out of that and get impaled...Viking on a stick.