The Weasel's Page of Miniature Painting

HMS Sophie, WIP Part 1

2011-07-25T21:26:00.001-07:00

[Dusts off blog]

This will be the first in my series of WIP posts to detail the progress on my HMS Sophie project.
I am working on a (roughly) 28mm tabletop Royal Navy Sloop. The model is scratchbuilt, mostly from scrap material about the apartment. Unfortunately, i have lost the camera with the earliest stages of construction on it.
The hull is built at the waterline for gaming convenience, and is cut and shaped from one piece of wood. I used a 2 x 6 from the local Home Depot (left over from my blank drill musket). I rough cut the shape using hand saws, then honed it in using a rasp file. The deck and gunwales were smoothed and shaped further with planes and a chisel.
The forcastle and quarterdeck have been built up using Basswood panels, and I have built gunports cast in green stuff from an original in wood and plasticard.

Moving on to something a bit more visual, i have begun the phase of constructing my masts and spars. The images below show the progression as i've been working on the fore topmast. I started with two dowels of progressively smaller diameter and filed the joining parts to be a bit square. I then added some supports for the fighting tops (i lose sailor points for not knowing their names), cut from basswood. On top of this is placed the tops.

Also important for the rigging, I have been constructing my own blocks, cut from dowel. They are notched around, drilled, and soaked in C-A glue for strength.

So far i have made 32 of these for the shrouds.

More on rigging and some pictures of the hull in the next post.

Bout time for something more

2008-06-21T17:29:00.000-07:00

I have been slow in the modelling lately. I have come across a book of rules for the Great War, and I am now interested in starting up an army from that conflict, most likely british.
In my current collection, I am working on my new Perry ACW troops, most of them being painted Union so far.
Hope to have some pictures up soon.

84th Foot

2008-05-06T15:41:00.000-07:00

Eighty Fourth Highland Grenadiers.

The French

2008-05-05T15:15:00.000-07:00

I am finding myself more interested than I had originally though I would be inthe regular armies of the AWI period. As much as I have enjoyed researching and painting forces like militia irregulars and Indian war bands, the call of the uniformed force kept haunting me.
Having already done a few redcoats, I wanted to try something different, so I ventured into some French soldiers from the revolution. I chose the Saintonge regiment because 1, I could find some good reference pictures, and 2, I really liked the green facing look.
The models I painted for these were Old Glory AWI french soldiers. From certain angles they look fine, but the molds are too narrow, and the men look rather weedy. Some of the faces look good, but others are lacking in detail, anatomy, and expression. Like the whole model, some faces look great from the side, but from the front look squished.
Mass painting has, however, made up for this, and I dare say they look good in a group.
By and by, their charleville muskets are very accurately sculpted.

Minute Men

2008-05-01T14:08:00.000-07:00

Here are some of my continental militia figures, also from the AWI range. These are Foundry models.
These men were a lot of fun to do. I really enjoy painting such a diverse mob. Every figure gets to be unique, so you don't get tired of painting a lot of them.

I really like the expression on the man in the shirtsleeves, like someone in the ranks made a very off color comment.
The one on the far left just looks ticked.

Woodland Indians.

2008-05-01T14:01:00.000-07:00

Here are some of my completed woodland Indians; a part of my forces of the American War of Independence. These are the first four of twelve.

Greetings

2008-05-01T13:56:00.000-07:00

Hello. This blog will record my progress in painting different historical miniatures.