About Me

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London, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
A mythical beast - a female wargamer! I got back into wargaming in the summer of 2011 after a very, very long break and haven't looked back since. I must admit that I seem to be more of a painter/collector than a gamer, but do hope to correct that at some point in the near future. My gaming interests span the ages, from the "Biblical" era all the way through to the far future. I enjoy games of all sizes, from a handful of figures up to major battles (see my megalomaniacally sized Choson Korean and Russian Seven Years War armies).

Sunday 2 June 2013

Sunday Update

OK, it's been a couple of days since I last posted, so it's definitely time for an update.


Thursday's X-Wing Games

I did take my camera, but ended up not taking any pics. Sorry about that. I was too busy playing or checking rules.

Anyway, 3 of us were playing - me, Simon and Seb - and plenty of others from the club popped over to our table for a look. Simon and I started off with the quick-start game to get the hang of the basics, then repeated it using the full rules. At that point Seb arrived and I gave him a game, then he played Simon but they got more ships onto the table. The final game saw me with 4 TIE fighters (2 x Academy Pilot; 2 x Obsidian Squadron Pilot) taking on the Falcon piloted by Chewie. We were running out of time, but after several turns I had 2 TIEs 1 hit away from death (the other 2 undamaged) and the Falcon was getting very close to being put out of action.

We all agreed it is a fun game and will make a good break from our usual FoG:AM and FoG:R games.


Project Pirate Pandemonium

The Pirates

Having looked again at the Blue Moon and rebel Minis pirates I'd already received, I worked out how many more I needed to make up the army and have ordered them.

The Ship

As it was the weekend, I decided it was time to start work on the ship. I filled the worst of the bubbles and gaps with plastic putty. After that it was cutting out the gun ports on the open deck, drilling holes into the other gun ports for the gun muzzles that came with it; measured  and cut the metal ladders; then glued all the metal parts in place. And then I kicked myself. I shouldn't have glued them in place until after I'd washed the resin ship to remove mould release agents. Oh well, I just had to be careful with how I did the washing.

This morning I spray-primed it with matt white paint, then left it to dry for a while.

Just to give a sense of the size of this ship - 35 cm (14 inches) long!

Donogh's Hasslefree minis in the background. I will get back to painting them this week.

A lovely mermaid as the figurehead

Weirdly enough, these bubbles are mostly invisible since I've painted the  basecoats



This evening I've been doing the base coats. For some reason, the Galleria raw umber paint didn't seem to want to go properly on over the white, so it looks a bit messy in places. For the decks I mixed in some yellow and white Crafters' Choice paint, which seemed to give slightly better coverage, but it was still messy. I guess the white spray paint doesn't have much "tooth" so was too smooth. I finished off that session by doing black for the stern panel, the bowsprit &keel, the grating over the ship's hold and the gunports and muzzles.






Since taking these photos I've done a little bit more. The gun port frames have been painted blue; the figurehead, stern-piece and windows have been given sky grey basecoats; and panels have been painted either blue or red. I've also gone over the hull with Vallejo burnt umber. I've also had to reinforce the ship's wheel as the metal was too weak and kept bending.

Now that I've got the bulk of the ship done, I'll just do little bits here and there over the next week or two. I still have to sort out the masts and sails - I need to get some doweling and some material.

13 comments:

  1. Nice piece for a game. I also think I'll adopt you storage method for paints. It looks pretty clear as to what you'd be selecting.

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  2. If you're looking for a good toothy primer, you can't go wrong with gesso. I started using it last year and I've been very happy with the results.

    http://www.herebegeeks.com/games/priming-with-gesso/#more-297

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  3. The boat's coming along nicely (and it's good to see the detail of the sculpts a bit better than the "distant" shot from last time.)

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  4. The ship looks good so far coming along nicely

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  5. Tamsin, that's coming along really well. I had the same trouble with the Galleria paints - somehow they seemed slightly "oily" to me.....they just seems to slip on the surface. I found after a few coats they're fine (and really good for terrain), but I had the same experience. I ended up trying Louvre Acrylics, which I think are nice to work with. That being said, I really like the wood effect on the planking. I really like the way that it has a natural look - exactly like any sailing ship I've been on. Good luck with the masts!!

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  6. Cheers guys - glad you like it so far.

    @ Robert - feel free to do so. After all, I purloined the idea from someone else on the 'net.

    @ David - gesso is great stuff and I use it for most of my figures. However, as I wanted to crack on with painting the ship, I figured that priming with gesso and waiting 24+ hours fr it to cure wasn't viable for this job.

    @ Clint - I'd planned to do close ups of the detailing during the painting process anyway.

    @ Simon - plenty more work to do

    @ Sidney - it's weird isn't it? I've gone over the wood since with a thin coat of Vallejo which has darkened it, but it still has a natural grained look.

    As for the masts, I still need to decide on what type of sail load to do. Foremast and mainmast will have square sails, the mizzen I could either do the same or go square topsail and a lateen for the main. I've decided against doing a bowsprit mast as it would be just too much hassle.

    I won't be doing much in the term of actual rigging as the ship is for gaming and needs to be easily broken down for transport.

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  7. the pirate ship is looking good. Look forward to seeing it on the table

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  8. Hey great model...and Aaarrrhhhh time to cut anchor and sail the seven seas..

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  9. The ship looks damn good Tamsin.

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  10. I'm really liking how the ship is coming along.

    FMB

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  11. Ship is looking good so far - it will be a fine addition to any gaming table. Best, Dean

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  12. Tis a fine ship and no mistake!

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  13. coming along nicely, have you named it?

    cheers
    Matt

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