Steven Van Dyck Author
For this project I had asked L'Arsénal to provide me with some rescaled figurines. I wanted some action poses so I chose the flight deck crew. Today I got them, and expecting about 100 of them I was amazed by a literal ant's nest in a box. It must be about 450 figures in total, counting at least 60 on one print plate in stead of the usual 20 and containing 7 of these plates.

Ben M
👁️👁️

Yngve N
I noticed the naval battles in picture 9 that made me curious. Then I checked your albums Parthenon (impressive and beautiful) and Essex Class (crazy project) and was very impressed. I will definitely be in the crowd of your Colosseum.

Thomas Espe
👀

Steven Van Dyck Author
Thanks for the interest. I added two images of the visitors.

Steven Van Dyck Author
Construction has begun, after comparing plans of the building printed on scale to the model. Overall dimensions and layout are good, but subparts have been changed to fit the casting process. In top view, the many entrances to the seats are located well but cast a bit too large. Square shapes have been skewed obviously. In section view, the arches have been cut in rows of 4 to allow for a cardboard placard with statues to be placed on the inside. The arch vaults have an obvious wedge-shape to make it possible to retract the mould from 4 rows of windows. The arch diameter of the galleries is changed from 8 to 6mm, making the archway more massive than in reality.

In the same tradition as the Parthenon project, these unnecessary deformations will be corrected. I went to buy a 7mm drill bit to prepare the vaults in absence of a center point. Then, the 8mm drill could bite in that hole and the correct vault shape was acquired. Some of the awning pylons were damaged, but these would probably also be replaced anyway, being cast with mould lines. The remaining vault material had to be filed straight, because the cutting disk doesn't reach the vaults. I had all of the 240 vaults drilled in one hour, but the filing might take several days.

Ben M
Does the kit build the full amphitheater or the part that survives

Robert Podkoński
Watching this talent show with pleasure!

Dash Rendar
Very interesting!

Steven Van Dyck Author
The kit is a reconstruction of the colosseum at its heydays, before it got damaged by natural disasters. The interior is completely hollow, so it would be very difficult to remove half of the outer wall and the arena floor to make the current structure out of it. The last three pictures show my method of removing the flat rear plane from the vaults using a sanding mill with a large diameter. Like that, the statues in their front views will all stand at the same depth in stead of forming a polygon. Currently 6 out of 20 parts have been reworked and look like picture 43.

Sy Bar
I'm in 🍿

Steven Van Dyck Author
Valete to all, the boardwalk is now made out of 8 large pieces. Then, all tapered windows are being straightened with pieces of ABS plate. Some are now tapering the other way, but this will be corrected. Removing material here was impossible, the windows should be quite small. At the moment, all 20 wall parts are made like picture 43 with the colonnades extended to 8mm. The extrusions in the outer walls are clipped off, these should be open to the outside. Some other improvements need to be made as indicated on the reference picture.

Steven Van Dyck Author
All entrances have been made smaller, and one set had to be moved to the vertical plane in the middle. That's also a consequence of the casting they used, entrances could not be made in the vertical planes. Sadly this meant that I also had to reconstruct 16 pairs of steps. I found one type of Evergreen strips that measured just half a step. Each step was made out of 2 pieces of this strip. Now all is as it should be and it can be filled in and sanded.

Steven Van Dyck Author
The sides of the arena entrances are sheared so that they are not inclined. In the wall elements there are often parts that are not placed radial but perpendicular, this is repaired by shaving of the pedestals for the velarium and putting them back with thick glue allowing to change the angles. I also remove the pillar bases to widen them, and add equal chapters between the velarium poles, that are replaced with wood beams. The colonnade chapters that were drilled off are replaced all 480 of them, because you will see a lot of them in the entrances from anywhere you stand.

Ben M
🤯

Steven Van Dyck Author
Some of the small architectural elements on the roof edge had to be reproduced. I also completed the replacement of the pillar bases with the ones joining the 20 wall parts. Then, the walls are glued to the floor, the fit is excellent. I predicted this by dry-fitting so I didn't replace the joining pillar bodies that were divided in two halves. The arena was dry-fit to shape the top part of the wall as it cured. Still about 480 very small parts need to be scratched to finish the strips surrounding the colonnades.

Ben M
What is the tool you are using to cut the styrene parts?

Steven Van Dyck Author
That's a cutter from Amati, there's a razor in the arm. Greenstuff now sells a wooden one too.

Master Cut (Amati 7386, No)

Ben M
Thank you. I have a need to make a large number of identical styrene strips for a model railway project. It caught my eye.

Steven Van Dyck Author
The internal colonnade is made, but I won't be using the pillars as they are subdivided in hubs. That is a Greek design element not continued in Rome. Also I will replace the Doric/oriental looking Italeri style with Corinthian acanthus design. I remove all pillar extremities because of the exaggerated diameter. This creates space for a frieze that was missing under the rooftop. Two massive cast ellipses not functional in the design are cut from the rooftop. I wanted to add the wooden benches and found the material to scratch this from Schulcz.

Steven Van Dyck Author
All 80 pillars are made in phases, first cutting the extreme ring with the help of a punch&die and a Mastertool saw (they have the teeth to one side, so I had to put it on 3 o'clock). Then adding the "Corinthian" squares and cutting the pillars. Then polishing the hubs and cutting new pillars out of 2mm tube. All pillars are calibrated to avoid that the roof will rest on only a few of them, again with a Mastertools item. A dry-fit is done and I think this will work, but the roof has to wait on the Schulcz 1/200 stairs elements. These are comparable to the Italeri stone benches in the model and can be cut to fitting ramps. I had first chosen to make 20 parts, like the external wall elements, but on the plan there are smaller portions. That's because the standard used is 3 vaults in stead of the 4 Italeri uses. I was able to use the scrapped portions to make new parts. Then I made the doors in them. Now some supprts will be made on the rear of the benches, angling them to 34 degrees. A strange error in the Schulcz plates is causing the lower 10mm of stairs to not line up with the rest of the part.

Steven Van Dyck Author
I drilled the entrances to the maenianum summum, but this now had to be done on the bottom of the arena part to not damage the pillars. Of course an accident happened and most of the pillars came loose again. The benches take all the space in the archway, but some have to be discarded to get a periodic position of the entrances. I traced the position of the steps to the roof by one of the windows that is blocked. I thought of a way to add more volume to the lower colonnade, using Takom rectangular sprues. Then I made a cardboard device to keep the statue images in place. After that, painting was needed, I used the Rustoleum can from the Parthenon project.

Steven Van Dyck Author
The statue images are fixed to my cardboard strip system and then these strips are put aside for detail painting. I discovered that the arena axis doesn't align with the exterior, now the center aisle abuts to a pillar between two arches. Also the emperor's seat is not aligned. No idea why Italeri did this, I should have reshaped the entire outline of the bowl to make it turn a few degrees and I would have to unhinge the four connection parts to the bowl. Now it will be visible from the outside that the entrance doesn't align.

I adapted the top benches to make space for 4 steps leading to the roof. Then I improved the exit doors from eauc level with steps and also added cardboard level behind the windows and doors in the middle of the bowl. Some stepped exits I removed earlier were used for another level of exits. Now some modulation will be done.

Steven Van Dyck Author
Painting was done with Gunze Cocoa Brown and some black as dark modulation, making it look like a giant Tiramisú. Then Vallejo primers like grey and yellow and at last Tamiya white for the marble seats and the colonnade.

Ben M
Mmm, giant tiramisú. I'd give the fabric roofing maybe more of a flat coat but maybe it's just the lighting. A shame about the kit not lining up properly. You're doing amazing things here just like in your Parthenon build.

Steven Van Dyck Author
Thanks, Ben. What you see is the stone roof over the colonnade, that was under the fabric roof. I will give the fabric awning a try when everything below it is finished. I know now the function of the two semicircles remaining in the sprues. They really wanted to add the oculus for the roof, and then realised it would get far too complicated to rig it.

Ben M
I didn't know there was a stone roof as well!

Many years ago I stayed in a tiny hotel near the coliseum, a treasured memory.

I think you should build the pantheon next 😂

Steven Van Dyck Author
The sad thing about that one is that it should be viewed from the inside out.

Guy Rump
Very interesting, following. 👍

Steven Van Dyck Author
Welcome, Guy. The painting is done now and was varnished. The roof is also fixed after thr drybrushed benches are installed. I had to fill up the cracks with cuttings of styrene I had kept. I made decorative façades from warship PE remains and painted these blue. Old waterline tape was used to spray red in the cavea. I started to paint the figures after a comparison with the same L'Arsénal figures in 1/400. I also made capstans from the ABSD1 remains after partly cutting out the shape in the plate. 80 are needed to rig the velarium.

Steven Van Dyck Author
Mig's brown wash is now applied over the entire building. I had to paint the bronze shields after that, the paint is non-wash resistant. I also made wooden drums for the capstans and painted these brown.

Steven Van Dyck Author
All figures are getting painted, with some gladiators and animals to replace the overscale kit figures. The seats are drybrushed and all capstans are installed on the roof. The animal elevators are scratched from more Essex PE. A first attempt at priming this in sand color ended in disaster with the base primer coagulating. This was soon removed and a second attempt will probably work out better. I started to cut the 240 poles from wood planks.

Steven Van Dyck Author
The arena is first textured with pigments, but then smoothened with airbrushing. Some new attributes are scratched, like a seesaw, a catapult, an elephant, an ostrich and some crucifixes, all of which were used for bloody spectacles. Some gladiators are added with one retiarius holding a PE net.

Dash Rendar
Oh my god, even figures...

Steven Van Dyck Author
The figures are now mostly added, but some will be placed on an exterior dio part that is made from a second-hand nacho serving plate. This plate is rotating on a base and I use Redutex 3D stickers for the metalling of the road. The original circumference of the Colosseum was paved concentric, of course this was not possible to create without complicated mechanical tools. It would look just as cool with these polychrome 3D stickers. I guessed 3 of them would suffice. I had to remove the upper plate and then decided to switch the base to the upside, so I could use the flat side of the lower plate, measuring 50cm. I designed some help lines to lay out the Redutex. I fixed the cardboard with the statues after spraying a matt coat. I then attached the building on top with 4 screws passing through the thick interior connection parts. The palissades for the awning were added and the CA glue the wood had taken up was filtered out with Vallejo light sand primer. This means the façade is finished and i can now try to reconstruct the velarium. I won't use the anchor stones around the Colosseum for that, there is doubt about their function and ruggedness.

Ben M
The outside is stunning, absolutely wonderful. The stickers worked well for the road.

Dash Rendar
Lookg gorgeous already, very well done so far.

Steven Van Dyck Author
Thanks for your comments, today the first velarium update is shown. To tend the oculus (the oval centerpiece of the awning) I will be using 80 cuttings of 120mm length 0.4mm diameter steel wire, each of these straightened and then bowed to one side to suggest gravity working on the ropes. To connect to the wood beams I used the most copious standard PE-scrap part I could find, again in the Essex floater net basket set. These all had to be pre-drilled to fix the wires. I chose the parts so they would be easily detached. After filing them, they were manually plied in a U shape (bend tool was too clumsy at these dimensions). These will work as a clamp around the beams. The wire is strung through the hole and tended to the roof inside.

For the oculus, I wanted to pre-shape the ellipse and avoid deformation by dissonance in the 80 cables, so It had to be quite sturdy. I used a brass H-profile that had to be soldered with the two ends together. I measured the required length with tape on the model and laid that out on the mat, it's 392mm. To achieve the perfect connection, I rigged both ends of the brass profile with a wire loop through a fine drill-hole and pulled them close together. A heavy clamp did the fine-tuning, it had to withstand soldering heat. The second attempt worked out fine. I now have a perfectly shaped oculus with an internal groove to hook each tension wire. But there still have to be made 76 wire fragments. Later these will all have to be connected to the capstans on the roof with secondary strands. I believe each of these wires was actually a loop, so the curtains could be rolled out by these. That would really be cumbersome to build...

Steven Van Dyck Author
Railing was needed for the highest level in the cavea. I used the remaining Shipyard PE for Dunkerque, removing the upper rail. At that point I had already started to fix the velarium steel wires that were painted sand brown. I completed the suspension of these wires. The oculus had been pried open again and was now completely bent in the right shape to remove any tension. Then it could be soldered with even less material and it would never deform later on. It was then painted grey. At the moment the tension in the velarium is too high and it sits at the top of the building. The cables can only be lenghtened by unbending the hooks or adding a shackle to each.

Ben M
This is looking so great!

Steven Van Dyck Author
Thanks, Ben. I lowered the oculus by unbending all of the radial wires and using plasticard to connect them to the outside of the H-profile. The height was regulated with 4 copper threads connected to the cavea. 80 strands of 16mm wire were attached to the capstans, I repainted the wires to cover some chipping. The time had come to choose a sail material. A test was done with 2 special kinds of paper, being rice paper (top) and parchment paper (bottom). The rice paper won out as it only needed a bit of water to drape itself around the netting. The heavier paper didn't budge. A large disk was cut from the paper and positioned on the netting. Then it was moistened and shaped with a brush. It kept its form when dried and was airbrushed dark red, using Vallejo red brown primer, Greenstuff Hot orange and Valljo Air Ferrari red. Some empty paint jars kept it from taking to the air. Currently it is positioned on the model before glue will be applied to each wire.

Ben M
I found myself wondering how anyone could hear anything in the coliseum, it's so large.

Simontie
Wow that is stunning

Steven Van Dyck Author
Thanks. The acoustics of ancient theatre buildings were very sophisticated, you can still hear a pin being dropped.

Desert Marlin
Amazing work! Well Done!!!

Steven Van Dyck Author
Thanks. Now the velarium is glued on, but the single sheet looked plain. I added single strands of paper on wooden rolls that were painted the same way as the large piece. The longer pieces were used whole, and the shorter ones were clipped and used to fill the space in between the rolls. Now it looks like continuous interchanging rolls. The disk inside was cut around the cables to give the idea of underlying strands. If you watch closely , about 20 navy figures are manning the capstans.

Dave
Great work.

Steven Van Dyck Author
Thanks, Dave. I did have to trim the velarium, to make the colonnade at the maenianum summum visible again. I had to remove the glue off the wires and repaint these. Now, more of the interior is visible. i scratched a farming cart from staples and some sprue oxen. These stand ready to remove the bodies of the fallen.

Robert Podkoński
I am speechless... Chapeau bas, Steven!

Desert Marlin
The work is well worth it!!! Looks amazing!!!

Steven Van Dyck Author
Today the project was finished. The Colosseum was surrounded with stone markers, of which only 5 are now extant after a roundabout was built by Mussolini. I recreated these stones with styrene rod and connected them by a copper wire. Some authors think these were used for lifting the velarium structure, but others calculated the weight of it to be too heavy. I also built a quadriga or quadruple chariot from chunks of sprue and staples. I added the last of the figures at the exterior and then used a matt cote for any glue stains. The model will be present at the IPMS The Netherlands contest.

Ben M
This kit is intended for like high school kid senior project type stuff. You turned it into something architecturally accurate as far as is possible, quite the research and beautiful craftsmanship you put into them. I also enjoyed your Parthenon. Great work!

Robert Podkoński
Chapeau bas, Steven! I admire your dedication to every subject!

Yngve N
When I joined Scalemates I never thought I would see something like this. Educating both in history, architecture and scratch building. As someone who attends concerts and some sports events regularly it's been really fascinating to learn how this building has exactly the same system for seating as used in all the modern arenas I visited. It has been a true pleasure following this.

Steven Van Dyck Author
Thanks to all for these kind words.