"28mm Pre-Dreadnought Battleship" Topic

Again, these are gaming pieces and are thus more of a caricature of a ship than they are a scale model, but I think this one is turning out OK.

The paint scheme and square turrets seem a little too modern.

Take a look link , opinions, criticism and comment welcome as always.

I like it , but I do think it is a bit too tall. What about taking 1/2" off the bottom?

That's awesome! The French had the coolest-looking pre-dreads.

The gun barrels need to be shorter and thicker to be in keeping, but top work. I can't wait to see it painted and in action!

In the last photo you complain it looks too modern. Try this kind of paint scheme instead. Black hull, white upper works, ochre yellow (or "buff" yellow) stacks. Very Victorian.

A nice touch would be to paint the bottom 1/4" of the hull in the below-the-waterline color, either green or red (depending on nation).

The deck color in the first two photos looks awesome, but in the last photo it's very yellow. Did you change it, or is that just a trick of the camera?

- Ix

Tom; I agree she is very vertical. The photo makes it look taller than it is in person.

Beas;, That might be my problem with the "too modern" thing…..I was thinking of swapping out the turrets for some round or oval ones with stubby guns.

Yellow Admiral, The yellow deck is a strange effect from using my cellphone for the photo, the color has not been changed

Good idea, though I hope you can put these turrets to use elsewhere.

A single-gun turret aft might also be a thought.

The Wartimes Journal has a good article on painting pre-dreadnought era warships.

link

Your ship looks great!

Jim

That is flipping gorgeous.

Holy Ship! That is a great looking ship you have there!

Most excellent!!

I have had several go's at similar projects. It helps when anything beneath the top deck (where figures can't be placed) is downscaled.

Highest praise I can make: it would make the Major General proud.

Doug

Thanks you all for your input; I have pretty much decided to ditch the current turrets and swap to an oval pattern, I'm not sure yet whether they will be single or double gun turrets, but the vertical turret sides/rivets/long droopy-looking gun barrels look was quite the "French" thing for a while (see the Dupuy de Lome). I will update when I get the new turrets done.

In an entirely different vein it looks like my inspiration Col O'Truth has returned from the dead. I know that I have been laying low for a bit but I was worried that his giant walker model had fallen over and crushed him.

Welcome back Col!!

Replacing the current turrets with oval ones would improve the look of this already excellent model. Changing the hull colour to black would make it more French-looking.

Hey, does anybody know what happened to the "Big Bad Battleships" site? It had a wealth of photos very conveniently arranged.

It used to be at "cityofart.net" and now Google can't find it. I'm no whiz with computers, is there a way to find old/abandoned websites?

Good question.

When looking for defunct web sites, always try the Wayback Machine.

Using that site, I found the last version of Big Bad Battleships they saved was on Dec 15 2014, so if it's gone it hasn't been gone long.

- Ix

Yellow Admiral, Thanks! I will give that a try

In the meantime I have been trying out other turrets set-ups. I am liking the oval turret a lot right now.

Just my opinion but I would say that it looks more "Germanic" than French and it reminds me very much of the tin toys that were popular in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Cloudy, I agree; I was thinking that it turned out looking more like a US product; altogether too utilitarian to be French.

I am going to finish it as it stands and build another one with a decidedly more Gallic flavor. Hopefully I can curb my enthusiasm enough to do a proper article as I build it!

I think she's a bit too tall in that bottom deck. The deck below the barbette turrets, I mean. Those should be pretty close to the waterline.