River Boat No.3

I was rummaging through some boxes in my workroom/office recently and found again the other river boat that I'd made.  It's approximately 1:72 scale and I had called it 'Marlene' (written underneath) with the date April 1993.  It needs a wee bit of repair work though (not to mention painting).

It is actually based on an illustration used for the cover of the Penguin Classics edition of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (mine is the 1988 reprint).  The illustration is by someone called F Hens (I couldn't find anything about him on the internet - I'm presuming it's a 'him' - although there were plenty of results about poultry), being a detail of a painting entitled 'The Steamer Stanley', presumably on the Congo or somewhere.

I did try it out with my recent Copplestone Darkest Africa figures (see earlier posts on this blog) but it is a little small.  28mm figures weren't really on my radar when I built it, obviously.  Maybe it's not small though, maybe it's just far away...

Construction techniques were my usual balsa off-cuts for the hull with cardboard superstructure held up with matchsticks.  I remember being rather pleased with the paddle wheel at the back (matchsticks and thin card) as I'd made it match the waterline.

Yet again, another lesson on the importance of knowing one's literature.