The League of Augsburg

I managed to complete three of the 15 sipahis which will be released in the Autumn. I really enjoyed these. Simple, easy to paint and very dramatic looking. I intend to share them all mounted singly first before I put them into units which will be at the core of the strike force for the Ottoman Army.

These fellas will be suitable across an extremely wide time span depending on what equipment I...

Sophia Amalia - 3D printed @ 1/1200 with scratchbuilding on masts

I bought a 1/600 scale 3D print file of a 17th century ship and got a friend to print the Sovereign of the Seas file in 1/1200 scale as I have no printer. I wanted to see the quality and have a go at painting the model. We also printed in 1/600 scale. The file was from Gilded Sails/Wargaming 3D.

Photo show the 3D print in 1/600 beside...

I have finally finished this slightly longer video. There is a lot in it and hopefully, it will decode the dark art of rigging for everyone remotely interested in trying it!

 It's easy to put these little beauties together. Here is a quick five minute run through...

More lovely work from Gareth's growing collection. It will be a real joy to see this collection on a table at a show somewhere when we finally settle down to normal once more. 

Gareth's lovely warm painting style is set off by great basing and of course, Clarence's wonderful flags. 

What better unit to show case the work than the Gard te Voet.

Thanks Alexey for sending these fine images of GNW Swedes. I am happy to say I now have several customers in Russia and GNW is proving of course, pretty popular. 

I am even more curious abut the other period which seems to be popular with my Russian customers.... King William's War in Ireland!

A mixture of Warfare and I think, Ebor? miniatures.

The first iteration of this converted Ainsty kit is as a 6 gun ketch Fox serving with the Royalist privateers sailing out of the Scilly Isles.

The vessel started life as a single masted sloop. I decided on a bit of conversion work and ended up with something which I am pretty pleased with. As time goes by and I feel less inclined to be lugging stuff to shows, I decided that permanently rigging some...

 How do you turn two models into twelve usable pieces? With a little bit of lateral thinking, some balsa wood, paint, glue, sandpaper and time.

I wanted to get the maximum scenario use from the two converted small ships I purchase from Ainsty. I will deal with their masts and sails in a later post but I wanted to get all the serious hull building work completed first before frigging in the rigging....

The overnights are in on the two small warships for the Anglo Dutch Wars period. I have blocked in basic colours only on everything except the decks which habe been drybrushed  UP 3 as I would say (ie basic coat + 3). 

Some of the colours shown are not the end coulours which will be used for example, the yellow will be overlaid in gilt. The ochre hull will be darkened down to a more oaken shade.

No...

Lots of prep work. The masts are scratchbuilt. Some additions to the hull were needed.

I have been working pretty intensively on multiple projects over the past 6 months the largest of which has been the two books due to be published this year. One is finished the other just about to be. 

The 4Play scenarios came out of nowhere but have consumed probably 200 hours - nevertheless, that has been fun...

 I have been holding back on certain posts for a while simply because I wanted to see how things were unfolding with Covid and supply chain issues such as manufacturing and master moulding. 

Things are slowly getting resolved but overall, I will have to implement wholesale changes in the way that I get products to market.Ultimately, that will be to everyone's benefit but during the transition,...