Maritime Aesthetic Puzzle Box Plans

I like boats. Specifically, I love the look of old wooden sailing ships like the ones in Pirates of the Caribbean. I’ve been thinking of making a model ship since the beginning of this semester, and after some quick research found the name of the aesthetic that fits my idea: the maritime aesthetic.

The above image is a wall tapestry with an image fitting the maritime aesthetic that I found on Amazon. The aesthetic is characterized by having lots of boat-related items, as well as elements of blue (representing the water) and white (for the sails). A model ship fits the aesthetic perfectly in my opinion.

Even though I like the model ship idea, I wanted to expand upon it to make the project mine instead of a copy of something that has been done many times before. In previous posts, I have mentioned that I work at an escape room company. Since I work around puzzles so much, I had the idea to turn my model ship into an interactive puzzle box. This would also fit the dynamic requirement of the project, as I can use moving elements in the puzzles.

Something that I am still deciding on is whether or not to include water in the project. Obviously I wouldn’t try to place my model ship in real water, but I have seen dioramas such as the one below that I found on Smartyle Owl that use epoxy resin to create the look of water. However, this might be too difficult and time consuming for me to include in my project along with making the ship. Please let me know in the comments if you have any tips for or experience working with epoxy resin!

This second image is a diorama using resin for the water with a ship travelling through it that I found on the World of Warships website. It seems difficult to do at the scale I am imagining though.

I am also looking for advice on how to build the ship, as I haven’t made anything as organic or intricate as it before. I will probably end up making it slightly larger (~2ft long) to make the fine details easier to work with.

The plan is to make the ship from wood, as that is the look I am going for. For the puzzles, I will use a combination of physical pieces and electronics controlled with an Arduino to hopefully make an immersive and fun puzzle box.