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| Stern view of my merchantman |
I've had my eye on this for long time. I nearly bought the fleet deal but that would have been like eating a large Indian meal after three weeks in the desert... it looks brilliant but would have ruptured me if I'd eaten it.
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| The flag is just for show |
I am glad. I made a wise choice because the work that went into this was pretty substantial. I didn't count, but probably spent about six hours painting it and maybe another two constructing the masts from scratch. I have not yet finished the mast pieces but they are getting there now. I still have to scratch build the furled sails and paint the whole thing properly with a limited amount of rigging per mast.
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| A nice sense of scale and usefulness on the table |
We always have a compromise decision to make when constructing ships for wargaming. Do we want them to look perfect, fully rigged, full sails and all that naval malarkey or, do we want them to be practical, transportable and easy to store?
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| five layers of paint and various ink washes |
Do we never want to have to bite back the rage when an unfortunate friend catches his sleeve on the mast and pulls the entire top level of the model off by accident whilst saying through gritted teeth..
'don't worry about it' knowing that we'll spend the rest of the evening crying quietly in the toilet?
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| detail at the pointy end |
I chose to love my friends, stay relatively stress free and be able to move my very heavy model from A to B without having to hire a flatbed.
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| no jokes about Roger or Seaman Stanes purlease! |
As I hope is obvious, I very much enjoyed painting this model. It is emulsioned in brown chocolate and then built up with layers of acrylic and toned down with layers of ink washes. I did enough work on the stern to make it stand out but not so much that it over faced me. I used my experience at the Vasa Museum in Stockholm as a reference point for the slightly gaudy figurines.
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| details and details |
The purpose of the vessel?.. we'll certainly not for Pirate games. It may well serve as the Mountjoy which will try and break the boom at Derry. It will, I hope fire in anger at DOB, Bob and Gerry over the next few months. It is really a practice run for the Man O'War from Ainsty which I will buy next (possibly twice!).
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| removable hatch |
It will definitely appear at a show this year whether in the Irish Sea, the Atlantic, the Med, the Caribbean or the Baltic!
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| nice selection of Ends to bring up the rear |
