Going for a 4th painting commission

[Leslie BT]

You'll need them up and running for the entoyment games day for the public display of the new POE rule set!!

[Lluis of Minairons]

Some ships else for this thread. It was now the turn for the smaller ships in the client's collection, a total of five one masted sloops --one of which painted as a Spanish escort warship, while the rest have been dressed as pirates:



One of the pirate ships has had a second mast attached, for I planned to transform it into a lateen sailed tartane. Although own to the Mediterranean Sea, tartanes and other lateen rigged ships were'nt uncommon in the Caribbean too --manned by French and Spanish crews mainly, but also by italian or maghribian sailors in foreign service. I've taken advantage of this for assigning a red-yellow striped flag, supposedly flown by one Edmund Cooke but could also belong to a French or Catalan buccaneer (It could do even for a Barbary pirate!).



The other three pirate sloops show slightly different rigging configurations, making them close to either a 'pure' Bermuda sloop, or to a square course sail cutter instead. All this, with the aim to make every ship unique. Spare parts from brands other than PP have been used for this, as well as some plasticard pieces.



On its side, the Spanish escort ship follows quite a standard pattern, with no other modification than making the gaff sail a bit smaller.



Current commission is almost over now --there are left only two large indiamen, that I've already started painting.

Lluís

[Stewart 46A]

Looking Good , as always

[Fat Wally]

Very, very nice Lluis.

[Colonel Kilgore]

Lovely, again, Lluis!

I do (very much) like the attention to detail, the historical rationale and the minor modifications you've made within the fleets.

Someone is going to be very happy when they get their hands on these little beauties

[Lluis of Minairons]

I'd like to show you now the last two ships of this commission, two large merchantmen that I've painted together with a couple else of ships for my own collection (no, I couldn't resist the temptation  ).



The only modification I've performed this time is replacing the ships' original bowsprits (exchanged with those of other ships of the customer). As you can see, both have been dressed as Spanish indiamen, so proudly flying large Burgundy Cross ensigns and mast flags.



As for the colours schema, it's basically the same one explained in previous posts --only that this time I've expanded the sails palette, using not only 70.837 Pale Sand or 70.884 Stone Grey, but experiencing with 70.976 Buff and 70.971 Green Grey as well. I think all them look good.



One of the indiamen has been given a different flag on foremast (a light blue one with the Spanish coat of arms), that was historically used by one admiral in WSS times. I thought it might be useful to the user --for identifying the Treasury Fleet admiral for instance, or a ship commanded by an able Reserve captain perhaps, or for whatever other reason he might need.



As you can see, decks are crowded with Peter Pig's crewmen and guns, Minairons' lifeboats and some unmanned hard plastic guns from my spares box.



I've enjoyed this commission intensely, and would like to thank the commissioner for his patience and trust. Hope he likes the result not less than I do.

[Lluis of Minairons]

I nearly forgot commenting even a bit about the other two ships. They both are from Portsmouth Miniatures, a small brand from Florida (US) whose products I was curious about. They are scaled to 1/900 and are intended for Napoleonic naval gaming; due to both facts, it seemed that these would be hardly compatible with our gaming group's 1/450 to 1/600 scales settings. Anyway, I decided to give them a try and chose their smaller ship along with their larger double decker.

I'm dressing the smaller one as a WSS warship, the Santa Madrona Catalan frigate. Rigging is not finished yet, so allow me a couple of days before showing it to you. What I've been able to complete is the larger vessel, that I've painted as an Ottoman ship of the line for a 1714-1718 Ottoman-Venetian War campaign I'm preparing.

Here you have it, conveniently modified as to make it look older than napoleonic, side by side with a galleass from Skytrex.



So as to help 'rescale' the ship, I've added some Peter Pig crewmen to it. Lifeboats are part of the original casting.



It seems to me that those high fore and aft castles aren't own to napoleonic period, but I hope such oddity helps making the ship to look older than it actually is. Bow appearance was drastically modified by using a couple of parts from a hard plastic model kit. The anchor is from that same model kit, too.



As for rigging, bowsprit comes from a Peter Pig kit too, while the othermasts and sails are from Minairons.

[Stewart 46A]

Look excellent as always lluis

[Colonel Kilgore]

Those all look absolutely wonderful, Lluis!

It's easy to forget quite how small these little models are - you've made them look fantastic.