Friday, September 13, 2019

Another Brick in the (Wooden) Wall

The title for the previous post is from the song "Workin' for a Livin'" by Huey Lewis and the News.  After I made the post, I looked the song up and discovered it was primarily a US hit instead of an international one.  So, apologies to any international readers I shortchanged.  Consequently, the musical reference in this title is so easy, I wouldn't even bother to give out a hint (well, if I gave out hints, which I haven't yet).  Let's just presume everyone got it, and move on.  Of course, for that one person who doesn't know the tune this title is riffing on, I will name it at the beginning of the next post. 😣

For the ship itself, there's not a lot to say really.  She's another British 74, of the Middling persuasion.  That means she measures between 173-175 feet on the gundeck, and normally carries 28 18-pounders on her upper gundeck.  This miniature will be representing one of the five Middling class vessels at Trafalgar.  I decided to paint her as a ship that is fresh out of the dockyard: whitish sails, no additional coloring or decoration other than stock.  My thought here is that perhaps her commander doesn't have a lot of extra money to spend on flashy decorations.  So, much like Captain Hardy in Victory, our fictional captain here took what he was given.

















I haven't posted a picture with the Quarter of Comparison (TM) in a while.
The next few sailing ships up on the blog are going to be Spanish ones.  I recently made an order from Waterloo Minis (http://waterloominis.com/) that will allow me to finish my Spanish fleet for the Trafalgar Project.  If you're in the US or Canada and need to buy Langton miniatures, Waterloo is definitely the place.  Jeff is a great guy to deal with; if he has it in stock you'll get it, and if he doesn't he will let you know.  I trust him enough that when I order masts and sails, I'll tell him "I don't want X or Y, but any other setting is fine."  Given how finicky I am about my ships, that is high praise indeed!

11 comments:

  1. Ahh the 74. The backbone of the fleet. Nice job on making this beauty. 😀
    Waterloo Miniatures is certainly the best for our AoS needs.

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  2. Yep, that they are. I know my announcements on TMP and TWW sounded a bit "meh." Thing is, right now I have 12 74's in my British fleet (2x Large, 4x Middling, 6x Common) with more yet to be built. Consequently, it is a little hard to make "yet another 74" sound exciting. I guess the only thing you can do is just bear down and keep building what you need, whether you want to or not. 🙁

    Yeah, Waterloo Minis is the best. I'm sure it's because they focus only on 1/1200 fighting sail. Jeff is great to deal with, and the owner before him was too. I think each of them got into the business side as a way of supplying their own sailing ship addiction, but I'm not totally sure about that.

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  3. What a wonderful job, I just like looking into the photo.

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    1. Thanks! Most of my photos are shot at the painting desk, with a folded piece of paper as a background. Even with that, (or maybe because of that 😁), I still have to fiddle with light balance in the photos.

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  4. Lovely looking 3rd rate! You can't have too many surely! Great finish on the sails!
    Best Iain

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    1. Thank you Iain, and sorry for the late reply. We've been busy around here with family stuff.

      I'm trying something different with the sails. I can't do a wet palette like the Langton book recommends; it's something I just can't pull off. So, I'm trying progressively thinner coats over differing color basecoats. The primer coat is still black.

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  5. Replies
    1. Thanks Vol. What are you up to in the NW after your retirement?

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  6. Well mostly "honey-do's". Haven't spent much time at the ship yard desk since I retired. I've lost 20 lbs though staying active. I did bash a Sails of Glory 1st rate and right now I'm trying to figure out how to make late 15th cent naval bombards for a caravel

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  7. Well if you can't find those 20 pounds you lost I'd be more than happy to send you some of mine! 😂 Now you know you can't just leave us hanging like this. What's the scale on the caravel? What SOG first rate did you kitbash and what did you make it into? C'mon man!

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  8. Hahaha! You have to visit the blog man! 🤣

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