With Hammerhead just over a month away I have been busy getting stuff together for my game there. The game is based upon the discovery of the Saxon Longship in one of the barrows there and the supernatural happens that happen forthwith, Saxon ghosts rushing forward and attacking the archaeologists and there government guards. I will write more on this over the next couple of weeks along with the plot. But back to the Longship.
The basic ship is from WarBases, just who else would I use, lol, and I have to say it is a very serviceable Viking Knarr that comes with a resin hull and wooden knell, mast and shields but I wanted to add a little something to it to make it special.
So I added planking to front and rear of the ship made from coffee stirrers which I got from a fast food outlet and made a wooden planking for it. Now I think this is better than the plant resin block that was there before and has made it look more like a Knarr. I also added so crossbeams too, as I have seem this in drawings and reconstructions of these vessels. With the mast I used dental floss after trying wire which didn't look right and the dental floss has that rope like feel to it and comes up a treat once painted.
Then I got to work on the wooden decking to make it feel and look like ship as opposed to a block of resin. Si I drybrushed it with a very dark brown and drybrushed it with a red mahogany colour and then added some rosy flesh colour to bring out the details. Once this was dried I washed the whole ship with a reddy brown/black wash and drybrushed the middle and light tones to it again. I think it is starting to come to life and the details on the ship are rather nice. I painted the dental floss with a light sand colour and the effect has worked rather neatly and looks like rope to me.
The nice thing with the drying and this has happened but accident rather than design, is that it has given the Longship an aged look which is good and if I had thought about it before I started would of been something that I would of wanted but not really sure how to achieve it. Well I know how to do it now but well I remember next time I want to create that effect, who knows.
Now to adding a sail and before anyone says anything, yes I know the ship found at Sutton Hoo was just an outline and there was no mast or sail, but I wanted to have one okay. The actual sail is simply made from a J-Cloth which I wetted before rolling it into shape and adding the ropes, dental floss to it. I then undercoated the whole sail and part of the dental floss that was wrapped around the sail black and drybrushed the sail with various reds and then came the hard part, just how to do the rigging and ties. In the end I simply went for a wrap around the mast and I think it looks fine. I now need to paint the dental floss to make it look more like aged rope.
All in all I am rather happy with the results so far and the Warbases kit is a very neat base to work from.
