Nautical novelties

Something a bit different today. I decided I would spend an evening painting for myself, and thought I'd have a crack at a ship. I recently bought two packs of 1/1200 Galleons from Valiant miniatures, just to see what they were like, as I have an urge to play some games from the era of the Spanish Armada. This has been greatly helped by the release of a ruleset by Ganesha Games called Galleys and Galleons, which I've been following the development of on the Irregular Wars blog. Half a dozen ships a side and an hour to reach a conclusion sound ideal to me.

An English race built galleon. One of two in the pack.

I had a good look around for ships to use. I considered the Zvezda 1/300 ships, the Triton 1/600 ships from Skytrex, and the Tumbling Dice 1/2400. Being a bit of a stinge I didn't want to invest too much into what would be a bit of a niche, so I settled on 1/1200. It was either Navwar or Valiant, but I saw that Valiant were having a sale and my decision was made.

Nicely packaged in blisters.

The ships arrived from the States in just under a week. They were well packaged in blister packs and came with little information sheets about how to assemble, paint and rig the ships. This was good, because I really am a novice when it comes to naval matters. I still had to google a few images of the period to make sure that I had things right.

A close up revealing how steady my hand is not...

I was feeling pretty happy with where this was going until I realised I'd put the poop deck (I think that is what it is called) on upside down... given that I'd just finished painting all the little details I really couldn't face pulling it apart and redoing it, so I've made sure the other English galleon is correct and when I build the Spanish ones I'll know what I'm about.

'And in a couple of hundred years you'll be as big as me...'

The only other 1/1200 ship that I've ever put together is a Navwar Napoleonic battleship. I took the time to do rigging with thread , and would have done the same with the galleon, only I wimped out because it is so small.I put them next to each other and was blown away by the disparity in size.

I thought I'd make some little paper flags for the top of the masts, once again an exercise in teeny-tinyness, but I feel it needs a little bit more. I haven't thought of a name for her yet. I wasn't planning on using any historical vessels - just my own imagi-fleet. Feel free to come up with suggestions.

The painting tray contains my current commission - Black Tree British WWII infantry for Craig and some figures I'm painting for Tim from Heropress. It's also got some Lancashire WWI Bedouin on camels and the other English galleon. Hopefully I'll have these all finished by the end of next week.

Nate