Sir Francis Haddock (The Secret of the Unicorn)

The Secret of the Unicorn (French: Le Secret de La Licorne) is the eleventh 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 June 1942 to January 1943 amidst the Nazi German occupation of Belgium during World War II. The story revolves around young reporter Tintin, his dog Snowy, and his friend Captain Haddock, who discover a riddle left by Haddock’s ancestor, the 17th century Sir Francis Haddock, which can lead them to the hidden treasure of the pirate Red Rackham. To unravel the riddle, Tintin and Haddock must obtain three identical models of Sir Francis’s ship, the Unicorn, but they discover that criminals are also after three model ships and are willing to kill in order to obtain them.

 

– courtesy of Wikipedia

The finished model:

The finished model:

This is Tintin project : 055

This project was originally completed on 2025/09/10

The story:

What. a. scene.

If I’m honest, this scene confused me as a kid. Did Captain Haddock lose his marbles? Was there some kind of temporal disturbance that had created a mind-meld between the two Haddocks? Was I missing something?

It wasn’t until I was an adult that I realized that staying up all night drinking and reading the amazing sea-faring adventures of my heroic ancestor – especially if I had recently been more of a drunk than a hero lately – might simply lead to some eractic behaviour. Still, what a great scene, no?

Haddock, sword in hand, leaps up on to the table, sword in hand, read to repel borders… and then quickly realizes his sea legs don’t work so well on land and he sends both himself and Tintin crashing down to reality.

The build:

Honestly, not much to discuss here on this one. The Haddock figure was more or less fully-formed “out of the box”. It took a bit to adapt Tintin into a proper “falling backwards out of the chair” pose. I’m not sure I’m 100% happy with the result, but… well… it’s not a graceful pose to begin with, so if it’s a bit odd, well, maybe that’s just what it is.

I did also design the table and chairs – which was no great challenge, but I did also have to create the picture frame from scratch. It’s got a fair amount of detail in it, and I think I got it right. If you’d like to get your own, I posted it on Cults3d.com for free… so go grab one!

Anyway, even though it’s a small project, it’s nice to finally be able to get The Secret of the Unicorn on the board. I have HUGE plans for this album, of course, but this little project now ensures that I finally have at least ONE project from each of the albums.