"The Scum of the Earth"

"The French system of conscription brings together a fair sample of all classes; ours is composed of the scum of the earth — the mere scum of the earth. It is only wonderful that we should be able to make so much out of them afterwards."
-Arthur Wellesley, 1813

Starting a new project is always fun. I currently have two new projects on the go, the first of which is 28mm Napoleonics.

I'm starting with the British - specifically the South Essex (latterly the Prince Of Wales' Own Volunteers).

These are a mix of Perry and Warlord plastics to provide some variation in height; I also painted various shades across the two ranges to ensure that there were subtle variations in colours to reflect the fact they've been in the field for a while.

Batch painting has always been my weakness so this was all about finding a system that wasn't too painful. The old lollystick approach and lots of washes and glazes was the main way although I am looking forward to the new Citadel Contrast paints as I reckon these will speed things up enormously.

Next up some

Master and Commander Redux

“Jack and Stephen were neither of them human until the first pot of coffee was down, hot and strong.”

As long term readers of the blog will know, I have a deep and abiding love of the Aubrey Maturin novels and especially of the film version, Master and Commander. To the point where I made screen accurate versions of the Surprise and Acheron in 1/1200 alongside a number of other ships.

One issue has always been that there hasn't been a good 28mm version of either Lucky Jack or Stephen - until now. 

This is the Limited Edition miniature that Warlord Games shipped with their 2nd edition Black Powder rules. I have no need of the rules but wanted the miniature very badly indeed. Luckily, a scholar and gentleman of the Napoleonic Wargamer Facebook group was willing to part with his. 

It is a gorgeous sculpt and an incredibly crisp casting. 

A quick zenithal prime...

And then basecoating. 

Reference material:

I decided quite early on to go for a holystoned deck for the base as it would make the darkness of the coat stand out more. Incidentally, I have started using airbrush tinner instead of water to thin my paints, even when using a brush. It's genuinely revolutionised my painting - as you'll see with some of the detail work on Lucky Jack. 

Daylight test and I'm happy with the custom mixed Navy Blue. Time to do the gold trim. 

The Far Side of the World

"The Acheron is a tough nut to crack... more than twice our guns, more than twice our numbers, and they will sell their lives dearly. [...] Much will depend on your accuracy... however... even crippled, she will still be dangerous, like a wounded beast."

The second part of my little treat to myself. The difficulty with building the Acheron is that she never existed as a ship; in the book version of Fat Side of the World, the enemy is an American Privateer, more or less the Constitution. For the film, they replaced it with a french Frigate.

I bought a Langton French frigate and brass sails and set to work creating as close as I could version of the ship from the film:

I think, overall I got there. I haven't normally put flags and signals on these models, but for this one I decided to try and match the screen version.

So another two ships to add to my growing fleet.