Aquanef: 1/2400th Militarist Flotilla is launched....

A look now at some of the South American inspired 'Militarist' ships that have so far left the slipway, as it were. These are about 80% complete, in that they need some tidying up; doing the Macro photos and seeing the results up close sure helps in flagging up those problem areas!

Having painted a lot of Pre-Dred 1/3000th, and dallied with the 1/48ooth Napoleonic from Tumbling Dice, I thought that these might sit nicely somewhere in the middle, however, I found them quite tough to deal with.

My 'style', if you can call it that, is quick and dirty, and whilst the clean lines of 1/3000th don't allow for too much straying into blobby territory, and 1/4800th actually benefit from a broad brush approach, these were more problematical.

Heavy handedness here meant some obviously over-thick applications of paint, and some very wobbly lining out being more apparent than usual....thank the gods that I have never been brave enough to let myself loose on quality the like of Rod Langton....that would be a car crash!

In my own way, though, and in terms of the tabletop, I'm fairly satisfied with them, and some re-touching and a bit more detailing, along with an ink wash, should finish them off alright.

Below we see the Peruvian ships the Huascar and the Independencia mounted on their integral bases:

I decided to keep the foremast of the Huascar in place after all, as I think it would have looked a bit naked without it - although it might complicate things somewhat when action stations are called!

The other ship needs some attention to the ratlines, and I might change my decision to go with a white trim and brown ship's boats - I think that all-black hulls might be a bit more realistic, if a bit bland, and as most contemporary pictures have the boats in white, then this would add some spots of colour to the whole.

The Huascar in a closer view; I tried suggesting the two 10" Armstrong guns in the Coles Turret with a couple of black 'windows':

Now for the Chileans; on the left the Almirante Cochrane, and on the right, Tumbling Dice's generic steam screw Corvette, depicting perhaps the Chacabuco:

I went with white masts not for any particular historical reason, but rather just to contrast with the yellow of the Peruvians; they might unite to fight off Nemo and his Allies, but are, after all, enemies. In terms of the look of both sides historically, it seems that they followed the standard black, white and yellow ochre peace time scheme of most navies.

I've been very pleased with the integral bases, they fit their respective ships like a glove, and also allow for a bit of 'heeling over' for dramatic effect, should you require it.

I've solved the storage issue by applying magnetic sheeting to the bottom of each, and trimming to size.

I suppose the only thing is that they are really too small to add in any sort of national identifier or name/data, although I am thinking of running with an idea to have a sort of trailing slip which could hold this information, which could be added to the various ships as and when required, but this has yet to leave the drawing board.

So, somewhat tentatively, then, the Militarists deploy their vessels to meet the strange threat of the unknown monster fish causing havoc with their merchant shipping....although apparently on a rather green and fuzzy sea....perhaps it's the Sargasso?