Saturday 26 April 2014

Something French (with a little bit of German on the side) on the Painting Table

Modelling Projects: 

Next up, on the "Napoleonic Ship" modelling front (or should I simply say "shipyard") is the first of the French "Commerce de Marsailles" a 120 gun 'monster' (though even she was again used against her original owners after again being captured by the British, but Navwar lists her as a French ship). 

The rationale of my choice being that my collection of Napoleonic 74's (bar HMS Thunderer) are really capable as serving as "dual nationality" (especially as I have not put any flags on any of them). Two out of three of them started life with the French Navy and also had 'other' French sisters of the same type. Therefore a big nasty "120 gunner" with a "74 gunner" companion in French colours should put up a decent fight against two British "74 gunners". Does it make sense to you? I hope so! 

The "Commerce de Marsailles" is shown belwo in her naked metal under construction (see below):  


As I was painting her an undercoat of aTmiya XF1 black I decided to catch up with undercoating the French D2 Infantry Tank, a 1/72 SHQ model I had assembled a while back (see below):



If there is one thing that annoys me about those "rare" metal tanks you have to buy to make up your OoB (apart from the hefty price) is the fact that to avoid casting a hell of a lot of wasted lead, the model is always artificially hollowed out without being provided with a flush bottom. 

Perhaps a small and petty thing to others, but to me it is an annoyance as it makes the kit unnatural to pick up and silly if viewed from the wrong angle. Seeing as it was only me that had this problem, rather than start a petition to the Prime Minister , I decided to add a plasticard bottom to the D2 (see below):


It worked so well (IMHO) I decided to add it to the German Propaganda Tank too (see below):


The two metal early war tanks (with 'plasticard' bottoms), the black undercoated 1/72 SHQ beasts parade their wares (see below):


Their camouflage paint jobs will have to come at a later time as "other projects" are crying out for my time. Priority goes to stuff that is needed for war games .

2 comments:

Sun of York said...

Fascinating to see the shipyard in production.

I looked at the pictures before I read the text and thought you were building some kind of hybrid by mounting one of the turrets on the ship. That would make it a monster.

Good idea about adding a plasticard bottom.

I also use Tamiya XF1 as my undercoat, I like how it seems to shrink down on to the surface, not obscuring detail.

Geordie an Exiled FoG said...

I am not quite yet into 'Steam-punk' mixing Napoleonic Ships with WWII tank armament lol ;)

The plasti-card bottoms is something I have been meaning to do for a while