(Clicking on all pictures should bring up a larger view)As I said in my previous post on this subject, I've been pleased with Navwar's 1/3000th range so far, and having received my re-print copy of Jane's "All the World's Fighting Ships 1898", full of remarkable illustrations hand drawn by Fred T. Jane himself, I can appreciate the good job the sculptor has done, given the limitations of this small scale.
Although I needed only a certain number of ships, Navwar's packaging of the vessels along with one or two examples of sister-ships or similar types means that I already have a good sample of the wider navies - so I can quickly call on re-enforcements once my 'What-if?' scenario heats up.
("Admiral, you sent a gunboat to the Taku Bar - now despatch the Fleet!)
Above we see the Japanese N5115 Fuji-class Battleship and Asama-class N5312 Armoured Cruiser in their undercoats, on my patented 'Double sided sticky tape paint sticks'.
(If you're reading this in the UK, you'll understand that all those years of watching Blue Peter on TV were not wasted after all!)
Anyway, so far so good, next up the British squadron in all its glory!
Below we have my first attempts at painting in this scale, two N9036 Chinese Armed Trading Junk, which will be conveying my Boxers into the melee, seen here mounted on 50x30mm plasticard bases; you will also note my decision to include a name-plate on the base. I don't normally do this on figure bases, but these somehow just looked naked without something, so the Brother label maker I 'borrowed' whilst at work (Don't tell the boss!), came to the rescue. The vessels' names are speculative, based on the Chinese nomenclature for the Boxer Movement: "I Ho Chuan", 'Righteous Harmonious Fists'.
Now it's Brainwave time: having named the vessels, I realised that visually I was missing some way of telling the nationality of each vessel, as they are obviously too small to mount visible flags themselves, I was casting around for what to do when I remembered Brigade Models' range of adhesive flag sheets for their Aeronef models; just the ticket, and available for all the belligerent nations:
These can be a bit hard to cut out and mount, scalpel and tweezers are required; but I think they look really good and are just the right size - below we see the Russian flagship, the Armoured Cruiser Rossiya (N7309):
She is mounted on a 60x30mm base made from the 1.6mm thick artist card with magnetic sheet applied from Tiny Tin Troops:
My only slight concern with using this is the fragility of the edges upon handling; perhaps there is some way of sealing them with varnish to give them some strength? I'll have to give it a go; anyway, they take paint well, white waves and wakes and all!
Finally we see the Japanese N5329 Suma, and N5324 Kasagi. My research, particular on battleships-cruisers.co.uk, has thrown up the fact that the majority of vessels were probably painted in their 'Tropical Station' white livery; this is a time before the battleship-Greys and Greens of the Russo-Japanese War, but I decided to do a number in their peace-time standard colours of black hulls and white or ochre upperworks to add some variety.
Anyway, so far so good, next up the British squadron in all its glory!
Love the blog - will be a regular reader. Why don't you give up the job and do this full time!
ReplyDeleteYou can try applying some thin superglue along the edges of the card to protect them from damage.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comments guys, Bill, that's a good idea, hadn't thought of that, must give it a try, I was worried about applying anything too 'wet', as obviously this might have caused the layers of card to separate at the edge, but superglue should set nice and hard - good one!
ReplyDeleteposso - If only I could!...if only! :-).