The Grand Staircase

I wanted to add one of the signature landmarks of the Titanic, the Grand Staircase. To do this, I had to add an in between deck with more plasticard. I then dremeled out the hole where the staircase would have been.

While its wooden structure no longer exists, the strangely shaped hole that it occupied still remains. Peering into the empty hole left by the skylight dome, one can see the remains of the Grand Staircase as well as the supporting columns on the deck surrounding it.

Boat Deck

The Boat Deck is named as such for its role in housing the life boats. This level marks the first deck of the ship which I did not have to manually craft. Some work was still needed, however, to convert the pristine decking to wreckage condition. I had to ensure proper sloping and position of the Boat Deck crack. The ship split just before the 3rd funnel, as depicted by the model.

The Aft

Towards the aft of the bow section, the deck levels have collapsed forming a layer cake of rubble, cable, girders, and rust. Due in part to both the initial snapping of the backbone at the surface and the final impact with the ocean floor, the deck collapse remains one of Titanic's defining features. The first step of creating Titanic's aft section was creating the boilers visible in the wreckage. I used cut sections of a mechanical pencil, perfectly round and the proper size to fit the adequate scale. In reality, the boilers would be 4 times the height of the average man. These boilers were used to power the largest single steam engines ever built, nearly 2 stories in height, each.

Above the boiler level sat the rest of the decks. I decided, again, to make these out of plasticard. I twisted and warped the ends with a pair of clippers and some help from a lighter. This helped simulate the twisted nature of the steel decking as it was ripped from its other half. 

With cabling and debris added, the result begins to look more like the actual wreckage.

The Hull

I wanted this model to be as true to reality as possible. This required a lot of research into the current condition of Titanics wreck. Each puncture and warp was carefully made to reflect that of the true wreckage. The scale is there only to prop up the model

Although blurry, you can vaguely make out the toothpicks I added to this hole to represent the underlying steel ribs of the superstructure. After making sure the hull was in proper shape, I decided to start adding texture to the wreck. After nearly 100 years of neglect, the ship has been consumed by rusticles, tiny organisms that feed on the iron and metals within the steel, leaving only the brittle carbon shell behind. Rusticles grow in long thin stalactite structures throughout the entirety of the wreck. The model just wouldn't be realistic without the addition of some well placed rusticles. To do this, I utilized the same material for making waves on my other models, Liquitex Gloss Heavy Gell Acrylic Medium. Dabbed in sweeping motions, the gel leaves behind a thin trail of acrylic medium. when this dries and get painted over, they will appear to be rusticles. Still a work in progress, I've added a layer of rusticle texturing to select parts of the model. Eventually the entire ship will have rusticles throughout.

Titanic

I've been working to finish the Titanic by the 15th of April for obvious reasons. I've managed to complete the under decks on both the bow and stern sections. These had to be crafted out of plasticard as the model was only made for the intact ship, so it is missing all the guts. To do these pieces, I cut out  pieces of plasticard that fit the shape of the hull. I made a total of 3 decks worth of visible card. This is to simulate the fact that a few of the decks remain crushed beneath the visible ones. Below are the bow sections of the deck.

I added rubble detail to the decking because parts of each level are visible through the cracks in the hull and each of the containment shafts. I want this model to have several view points so that people can actually look inside and enjoy the detail. In keeping to the true nature of each shaft, They all descend to different levels of the deck, as they would have on the actual ship. from the side cracks, one can get a view inside the wreck.