Finished ships

I kinda slipped up posting the progress pics, so here's the finished(-ish) reveal!

I picked up the idea of using paintbrush bristles for rigging from a thread on TMP, and boy does it make life a million times easier.

You'll notice a lack of gunports, and that's because I'm just not a good enough painter for that, and I opted not to model them on, this batch. So as in painting miniature people and forgoing eyes by saying "they all blinked when I took the picture", in this case, the ports were never supposed to be different colours, to hide their number from the Frogs!

Also notable is a lack of "deck furniture", or detail on the decks at all. Again, I'm not that good to have it look like anything other than lumps, and since I (foolishly) build at 1/600, there's nothing much to buy. As much as I like building everything myself, cannon and deck detail would be something I'd happily buy.

The nameplates aren't actually affixed yet because I'm not happy with them. The text would be a lot more legible in yellow, I suspect. They're actually made out of cut pieces of faux wood blinds. Handy little shortcut.

Overall, I'm very happy with this batch. I learned a lot, my painting skills improved, I kept notes on what worked and what didn't, and most of all, I had fun!

Make sail

Sails done.

Form line of battle!

Painting

Started painting. First came many, many thin coats of watered-down PVA glue, and then a couple thin coats of the colour.

Since these ships are all "weird" - ie., an experiment, two captures, and Canadian-built - I'm going to be a little more creative with the painting in the next step. A yellow stripe for Electryone, green for Luna (because the model of the Elvin has such a stripe), an orange stripe for Flare to reflect her Dutch upbringing, and probably Nelson Chequer for Puffin.

Yarrrrrrr-d me mateys

Yards done.

The bases are siding samples with a couple quick coats of gloss varnish.

Spring in the dockyards

The icy grip of Winter has lifted, and Admiral Duncan puts the men to work preparing a squadron of ships for duty in the North Sea.

That is, I've finally gotten back to working on my 1/600 scale scratchbuilt Napoleonics. I had intended to do lots of detail work over the winter, leaving the messy business of gluing and sanding hulls for the summer, but painting Star Wars and, well, laziness (and work!) kept me from it. But no more!

The masts have been sent up on His Majesty's Ships Electryone, Luna, Flare, and Puffin. Not much of a squadron anyone would want to command, I grant you. Three brigs and a sixth-rate? I mean, just look at some of these ships!

You've got Puffin, a foreign, colonial-built 18-gun brig out of Halifax:

Luna, a captured Danish brig about whose stern the less said the better (though she mounts 18 canon as well):

Flare, another 18-gun capture, but this time Dutch-built (pray she holds together, lads!):

And the so-called "flagship" of the group, the experiment otherwise known as Electryone, 32:

Just look at that deadrise! What were they thinking? All-in-all, an overgunned, questionably-built bunch of hulks. Well, maybe the next pile of oak on the stocks will amount to something more fitting of the Royal Navy. HMS Vigourous, Brilliance, and Lambent should be ready any day now.

All wings, report in (Image-heavy)

My Star Wars ships are all done.

First I made some stands

Turns out off-brand Q-tips are the perfect size for Micro Machines.

I sprayed them black and because the weather refuses to cooperate long enough for a second coat, went ahead and stuck the ships on!

The Rebels:

Blue Squadron:

Green Squadron:

Purple Squadron:

And the Imperials, comprised of elements from the 726th Flight, seen here in parade formation (aka, I don't have enough TIEs to make full squadrons):

And because why NOT use up all the bandwidth, pics in different lighting as well.
 

Different kind of ship

Whooooooa long time no post. Some work has been done on the proper ships but until I have photos and write-ups collected, let's do a Star Wars post! Woo!

I've been doing lots of squadron-building, and not enough painting.

Blue Squadron (née Indigo) has grown considerably after some reinforcements from command.

 

Even more impressive, this little Rebel cell has been blessed with some of the latest and greatest starfighters in the Alliance, and now boasts B-wing in the form of Green Squadron.

Which is good, because unfortunately for the Rebels, they've started to attract some attention.

And the 726th Wing is ready to do battle with the pesky Rebel scum. Well, the 726th Wing and some reinforcements...

Still lots of painting to go. I made a brief foray into trying to "paint" with Sharpies, but the results are too glossy and rub off too easily, so back to paint it is. More TIEs would be nice, as ever. Instead of proper TIE and Interceptor squadrons, I just kind of have a swarm, at the moment. For the Rebels I'm still not convinced about the breakdown. I could do an all-X-wing interceptor/space superiority squadron, and make a Y/B dedicated bomber squadron, or leave them mixed as it is, each bomber element with attached escorts.

The biggest problem I'm running into is all the extras. I have more gold shuttles, Falcons, and TIE Advanceds than you can shake a stick at. :P So I've been making some Uglies, but that can be another post. For the moment, I hacked up an extra B-wing (on the assumption that I'll never find 6 more to make a full, 12-strong squadron of just B-wings; and also I've never really liked them that much) and a T-70 (because I hate T-70s) to make something that more or less looks like a Clone Z-95. The regular Z-95 looks like crap, but the Clone version is cool. Sadly I doubt we'll ever see a real model of it.

Till next time!

(When I should post the REAL ships... but... shhh....)