Naval teaser!

Life chez DestoFante has not been limited to sleepless nights and changing diapers! Wargaming time, in all honesty, has been minimal, as you might guess; but we had a few progress, about which I hope to update you soon in thorough manner. For the time being, just a teaser -- a naval teaser! Here a few WWI British warships just christened early tonight. These models are 1/6000 Figurehead, representing four Weymouth-class (Town-class) light cruisers, namely HMS Weymouth, HMS Dartmouth, HMS Falmouth, and HMS Yarmouth, and three Devonshire-class armoured cruisers: HMS Devonshire, HMS Hampshire, and HMS Carnarvon.





I hope to have the time to get back online soon with some pictures of my finally completed Marlburian units!

Naval inspirations

You may remember that a few months ago I finally dared to paint some Figurehead 1:6000 ships, and overall I had a very good experience -- actually, I became very excited about naval wargaming! then, as usual, my mind drifted away from that project, which nonetheless is abandoned. Far from it! A couple of recent postings in other blogs have revamped my Fall flame. Bob Cordery shows some old Minifigs models, and Jeff has been working on his grand fleet.
The inspiration from their work made me elaborate some thoughts on my own project. First of all, I feel comfortable in doing naval WWI at the small scale of 1:6000, since all I have available is a 6' by 4' table, and ground scale would look completely off at any other level. That said, there is something for larger scale, let say 1:3000, and I wonder whether sometimes, in my future, I would consider that scale for the pre-dreadnought period -- where, I feel, scales can be further compressed without stretching credibility to an extreme. To this regard, a recent exchange on TMP did not go unnoticed, either.
The second thought is about rules. I do have an itching, and it has been going on for a while, for Seekrieg V. It is an expensive affair, reason for which I keep postponing the purchase. It also sounds a pretty complex ruleset, somewhat against my recent inclination for a simpler, "old school" approach to wargaming. Yet, I am fascinated by it for two reasons: first, I am more attracted by small naval engagements rather than large, Jutland-like confrontations; and second, I am sincerely curious about the inner working of a battleship, and I do not mind to somewhat dig deep into the belly of the beast, so to speak.
Of course, the irony is not lost on the fact that the complexity of the battleship would be represented on the tabletop but a tiny piece of metal in 1:6000 scale. There seems to be a strident contrast there. Maybe this is one factor that is holding me back from the investing in the rules (which, these days, might still outperform my 401(k)...) And maybe it is this very factor that tempts me in the direction of 1:3000 models for the pre-dreadnought era (which, by the way, would still be covered by Seekrieg V.)
Just thinking out loud.

O boy, "they paint" fast...

... and you paint, and paint...
And here we go. Fresh from my bench, SMS Goeben and SMS Breslau ready to sail off Messina, destination: unknown. Circa August 6, 1914.


Now the question is: does Britannia still rule the waves?
These guys are out to offer their answer...



Some commentary will follow soon... but I figure out you will enjoy a happy Sunday night with some eye-candies. All these miniatures are Figurehead 1/6000. Painting took place between yesterday and today, and this time around there was some headwind: one lesson I learned is never, never spraying a white primer outdoor in the freezing Chicago temperature. Nevertheless, I recovered from that horrid splash of condensed white paint shot on HMS Warrior, and I sailed relatively smoothly for the rest of the job.
Funny fact: none of these miniatures were in my possess as of last Monday morning. On Monday afternoon, I submitted an order to the Figurehead distributor at The Last Square, Madison WI. The miniatures were fortunately in stock: the package was sent on Tuesday morning from Madison, and delivered on Thursday in Chicago. By Sunday night, they were painted and ready for action. Sigh of bliss...

Dipping the toe in new waters

Having just asked myself the other day, "how am I suppose to paint these little jewels? ", where by jewels I meant some 1/3000 and 1/6000 miniatures for naval wargaming, it was only consequential to spend a quiet, otherwise uneventful Saturday afternoon by taking up my own challenge. Again, I have never painted any ship, in an scale, before, so this was an absolute FIRST. Here's my humble chronicle of the events of the weekend.
I started by gluing my ships to nails with a flat head - I guess, this is the naval equivalent of the wooden stick I use for 15mm miniatures. I was lucky enough to have some styrofoam around, which provided an excellent base. The Figurehead 1/6000 minis were separated, the actual vessel on one nail, the base on another. Here's how my table looked at that point.

Next, some white priming. This was done with the Krylon H2O White Primer I bought in the by now not-so-recent trip to WalMart. Very nice primer, I would agree - and pretty cheap. I keep it light, since this are tiny tiny model, and I didn't want to overdo my hand. Here's a close-up of RN Regina Elena.

Next step, I did some actual painting, starting from the 1/3000 Davco. D-551 Audace was relatively easy: light gray for the vertical surfaces, and dark gray for the horizontal ones. This seems to be a pretty standard scheme for NATO. The tanker was slightly more challenging. I was not able to come up with a color picture of British Trent, so I had to adopt the scheme from a few other online pictures I found through Google. As for the Osa-Class mssile boats, a few good pics helped a lot; I opted for brownish horizontal surfaces and gray vertical surfaces, based on a few pictures from former Soviet and Iranian sources. This is not the best pictures, but at least shows the three vessels together.

Since the Osa-class ships are attached to the base, I took a little time and fun to paint the waters... and this is the moment in which things got exciting. I have to confess, thus far I was painting without much self-awareness, but now I began to feel the excitement. I took a picture of this Osa and I began to feel self-confident into my efforts.

I polished the three Osa, Audace and the tanker with a black ink wash. Not my favorite technique - I actually explored a very light dipping in my dark WinMax Polyshade, but I decided against going this way - the Osa model I experimented with looked too shiny, and I was not able to control the "blackening" to fix a few "painting sins." Black ink did it, and I was glad with the results.
I took a break, and I realized it was time to move on to the the 1/6000 Figurehead vessels. I cannot hide my concerns: these are tiny. Really tiny. I already felt I was stretching my abilities with a 1/3000 model, and Figurehead was upping the ante to an entirely new challenge. Oh, well... I started dipping the brush with the thinner point into the paint, and I slowly went to work... first, the horizontal surfaces, a yellowish buff; then the vertical surfaces, a brownish gray. The color scheme came from a few models I found online (in a much bigger scale!) at this excellent website. Then I painted the chimney turrets black. And then... I was done! Seriously, there is not much else you can do on a vessel at the 1/6000 scale! This is how RN Regina Elena looked at this stage.

I faced again the dilemma between miracle dipping and ink wash, and I went for a split decision. RN Regina Elena received the ink wash, while RN Dante Alighieri got a mini-dip. I worked on the bases, and by now I felt I mastered the tricky task thanks to the previous work done on the Osa ships.
And right there, I was done: the miniatures popped easily off the nails, and as easily were glued to their bases. Done!
After all the work, this morning the time came to take some "official" pictures. First, the Osa class missile boats.

Now D-551 Audace and the tanker.

Then RN Regina Elena.

And finally, RN Dante Alighieri with RN Regina Elena in the background.

Some final thoughts. Painting these miniatures was actually far easier than expected, and that's true also for the 1/6000 Figurehead. Actually, I am thinking to buy some more from this line. My first foray into painting naval miniatures was fun, at moment exciting. I am delighted by decision to spend my Saturday on this task. I will resist the temptation to stand on the deck of RN Regina Elena and declared "Mission accomplished", but I feel elated by the experience, and I think I will soon explore naval miniature wargaming with more dedication. I have a few thoughts to share on the topic of which rule sets to adopt, but I will leave that for another post. For now, let me bask in the sunshine on the deck of one of the aforementioned ships...

Naval detour

Over the years, I had a few moments of fondness for the idea of naval wargaming. On my bookshelf, I have a copy of Harpoon, in case I decided, one day, to play some modern scenario. And Seekrieg V has been on my wish-list for quite some time.
Occasionally, I also bought some miniatures: modern 1/3000 Davco and WWI 1/6000 Figurehead. These miniatures just came in my hands again tonight, as I was browsing through my wargaming closet. They are nice, nice for sure... but... er... how am I suppose to paint these little jewels? I found a few online tutorials, most notably this, but nothing that really convinced me that painting naval miniatures would not be complete madness.
So, here I am contemplating the nice pictures I am sharing, and wondering...
Modern Italian DDG "Audace", 1:3000 Davco model
WWI Italian BB, RN "Regina Elena", 1:6000 Figurehead model
WWI Italian BB, RN "Dante Alighieri", 1:6000 Figurehead model

ERRATA: The modern vessel, "Audace", is in fact a Davco model, not Navwar as previously stated.