The Shipyards are working overtime (Black Seas French)

by Matt Varnish

The past few weeks been using a lot of downtime at work to get some ships done for my Black Seas French fleet.   Its been decent, 20 minutes here and there at work when we are on break, instead of doomscrolling facebook I get a bit of paint in.

After a few years not painting these I wanted to work my way back up to speed with some Merchant ships and then try my hand at a 1st Rate. 

Close up of the large merchant from this box, a good test of how the metal first rate masts will be in terms of flash and bendingness.   Foreshadowing, VERY bent!

Aggravatingly, one of the scenarios in Black Seas has 3 Merchants and this box only has two, so I've gone ahead and converted my old Wargames Illustrated free sprue 5th Rate into a third Merchant.   Toothpick for the lateen mast and printed off a spare sail and cut to size.   its the ship on the right in this pic of all three.

1st Rate 'L'Orient' prior to the massive explosion in Aboukkir Bay

Only drawback of a 100-gun vessel is.. painting 100 guns!

yes I painted the planks on the deck....

Stern View

I find that the Jib sails are NEVER wide enough on the 3rd rates and larger.  Saw J's Wargaming attach lines to stabilize the sails, looks alright!

Colour palette:

Ships sprayed with grey primer and covered with GW Contrast Snakebite leather.

Black:  Vallejo (VJ) Black highlighted with VJ German Grey

Painted wood:  VJ USA Tan Earth, highlighted VJ Buff

Gilded Wood (figurehead and stern plating)  VJ Beige Brown highlighted VJ Desert Yellow

Deck work: Variety of VJ Flat Earth, Flat Brown, Tan Earth (deck planks)

Window and skylight Framing, and lower mast banding:  VJ Ivory

Clear bases by Fluid 3D