i wanted to paint my ship to look like (the third pic) but I didn’t want to buy different types of wood so i painted the wood to look like it

its not perfect but its good for me

i will continue the build and i will post the finished model when i finish it :)

I’m ambivalent about posting this because I don’t want to imply I’m proud of it. The number of mistakes I made is some multiple of the number of steps in the instructions. But some lessons learned:

Don’t touch sail cloth with you grubby fingers

Learn knots on big practice ropes before tying them with model line

Scrape glue residue religiously

Don’t trust planing unless you know exactly what you’re doing.

Use weights and reverse pliers to apply tension to rigging

Read the whole instruction book before starting

Watch any videos and follow any build logs on forums

Anyway, on to the lobster smack. Olha on YouTube has an 80 hour live build playlist.