Shark Submarine (Red Rackham’s Treasure)

Red Rackham’s Treasure (French: Le Trésor de Rackham le Rouge) is the twelfth volume of The Adventures of Tintin, the comics series by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. The story was serialised daily in Le Soir, Belgium’s leading francophone newspaper, from February to September 1943 amidst the German occupation of Belgium during World War II. Completing an arc begun in The Secret of the Unicorn, the story tells of young reporter Tintin and his friend Captain Haddock as they launch an expedition to the Caribbean to locate the treasure of the pirate Red Rackham.]

 

– courtesy of Wikipedia

The finished model:

THE VIDEO:

THE (PREVIOUSLY) FINISHED MODEL:

The story:

Ok, I’ll admit it, I’m a sucker for treasure hunts. People talk about the job being it’s own reward, and I usually agree with that, but there’s something to be said for the reward being the reward.

While Red Rackham’s Treasure doesn’t rank in my all-time favourite Tintin stories list, it’s definitely in the top ten. As far as the covers go though, it’s probably top five – right up there alongside The Blue Lotus, The Black Island, The Shooting Star and Tintin in Tibet. Probably the biggest reason for that is, of course, that awesome shark submarine.

For my money, the shark submarine and the red moon rocket are the two most iconic of all of Hergé’s vehicles. They just scream Tintin to me. So it should come as no surprise that the Tintin shark submarine was one of my very first Tintin projects. Although the DHC Chipmunk from The Black Island kicked it off, it was the shark submarine project that opened my eyes to the possibilities of scratch building Tintin vehicles beyond simply what was commercially available – i.e. a few airplane kits. So, in a way, this is the one that started it all.

Having said that, the shark submarine is probably not that far a stretch. It’s more or less just an airplane with very tiny wings (and the propeller on the back).  Of course I’m also not the first person to realize that the sub’s fuselage is very similar to a Messerschmitt Me262 – there are several interesting builds floating around out there on the internet that started on that premise. What really cemented it for me though, was the realization that a 1/100th scale Me262 – a kit that is readily available from Tamiya – was almost the perfect size to use as a donor to create a 1/72 scale submarine.

The build:

The main part of the build went together quite easily. I just started where you always do when building an airplane model, with the cockpit and began by building out a seat and control panel. I probably went a bit overboard on the details given how little of it is visible once the fuselage is buttoned together, but it was fun and enjoyable to do, so that’s what really matters.

What gave me the most trouble was the canopy. I had what I thought was a good idea to use the leftover plastic from a pill blister pack, but it was more trouble to get to look right than I’d initially thought. At fist I tried to glue some bent wire over the arch, but I had trouble keeping the glue from getting all over the clear parts. Then, after several attempts to bend it to my will, I realized that even if I could get the proper arc, the wire I was using was woefully out of scale and would look strange.

So instead, I moved on to Plan “B”, which was to use a few strips of an adhesive foil, and that worked wonders. Without having to worry so much about the glue, I was able to coax the pieces into place with minimal fuss. It was so easy in the end, it felt a bit like cheating… but I’m pretty sure I earned that victory.

After that it was just a matter of putty and sanding the seams away and giving it a relatively uncomplicated black and white paint job. My masking could have been better, but it’s always a learning process I guess.

As I mentioned, this being one of my first Tintin builds, I hadn’t yet settled on using a template for the base/stand. So, in keeping with the central concept of Hergé’s “musée imaginaire“, I build a base that I imagined might be used to display the submarine in a museum. I liked the result so much that it was difficult to abandon (or at least repurpose) it and move to a template. Being able to use a bit of real corral eased that pain though.

THE UPDATE (2023/12/11):

So, much like my other previous scratch-built projects, the Wolsely Armoured Car and the Udet U12 Flamingo, I decided that my 3D modeling skills were up to the task of an attempt at a do-over. The shark submarine was probably the easiest of the three, because, being so iconic, I didn’t actually have to build my own 3D model. There are plenty of them out there to choose from. Of course that doesn’t mean I didn’t have to modify it a bit.

However, as I found out with my Runabout Boat project, that doesn’t mean you just download the file and hit print. Often the files are either poorly set up for actual printing (manifold doesn’t matter when it only lives in a virtual world), or they become too thin/flimsy when printed at a size smaller than they were intended for. So, I did need to modify the files somewhat for my own purposes – including adding an internal support and an axel guide for the rear propellor.

Despite my best efforts though, there were still a few problems. For one thing, after sanding off the marks left by the printing supports, the fins because extremely thin and prone to warping. Also, the very inventive “hide the seam along the border between the white/black” idea proved quite difficult to line up properly at 1/72 scale.

In the end, it took me three tries to get right, as I kept breaking the still fragile fuselage in all the wrong places. But I was keen to see this one through, it represents the first real Tintin-related project I tackled, so I wanted to do it right.

I like the final result, but please feel free to tell me what you think.