"My 1/2400 Scale Fleets..." Topic

The Japanese and Americans were my first attempts at Naval miniatures, the 2 Germans are the latest I have finished. I am always a fan of constructive criticism! Still trying to figure out the best bases for them!

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The best base is no base. I write information under the ship, name, country etc. The ship data is on a separate sheet of paper. You are going to put the ship on a terrain base of water anyway, why do you need a base on top of that? The bases with little names, flags, and data only distract from excellent paint jobs on wonderful models.

I don't even base PT boats or even whaleboats.

Mike Bunkermeister Creek
Bunker Talk blog

Are they from Viking Forge? 1/2400? If so, beautiful! They look like 1/1200. AWESOME paint job.
Basing- I use very thin clear plastic sheeting because I like to put a small flag at the stern of the ship for easy national ID. Like Mike I put ship name or type underneath the ship and refer to a chart so it doesn't distract from the ocean terrain. Of course you could do a flag and ship name on a small strip of paper and run it along the side of your ship on a thin plastic or metal base- that's what most guys do.

The best base is no base.

A man after my own heart. :-)

I admit I would probably base PT boats and ships' boats if I used any. I have some Panzerschiffe WWI-era MTBs that came based, and it helps players to find them and handle them with massively overscale human fingers…

- Ix

I agree minimal basing. No base if you think you can get way with it, if not thin clear plastic sheet. Since you are a fan of constructive criticism I think the wooden deck areas look too dark. For example:

JasonAfrika, some are from Viking Forge, Most are GHQ, I love the GHQ even though it costs a bit more. Viking Forge has some really nice models and some that are not as nice… What I really like about VF is that they have some ships that nobody else has!

I was thinking about a clear type base, what do you guys use? Have any of you used the Old Dominion Game works bases? Are they worth not having to do it yourself?

Timmo uk, Thanks for the advice! I will say that I started with the Japanese and their decks came out too dark, the Americans have mostly blue decks. I tried a lighter color for the 2 German ships and that is too damn dark too! I have some unpainted British ships (My next project!) I have no idea what color their damn decks are! But I know some of them are wood. I am going to have to find a even lighter color to paint them!

I believe the Royal Navy was holystoning wooden decks right up to the end of wooden decks. Other navies probably had similar practices, if only because bored sailors tend to get in trouble if they aren't kept busy.

I aim for something like the above pictured color on most of my ships. My favored deck painting technique is to paint the deck a very pale tan or ivory, then tint it lightly with an extremely thinned-down wash of burnt umber. I use watered down FW inks for the wash, but paint would work. The end result is a color very similar to that photo above.

I also like to vary the shade from navy to navy, partly to help give each navy a unique character, and partly because it helps tell them apart on the table. This can be achieved by starting with a different undercoat. I have an amazing variety of nearly-similar ivories, tans, and gray-tans from all my experimenting…

The best "out of the bottle" deck color I've ever seen was the Howard Hues "Old Wood" paint. Unfortunately, it's not great paint (poor coverage), and the jar sealed so poorly it dried solid before my second use. I eventually found a similar color in one of the generic craft store acrylics (Delta Ceramcoat or some such), but it's not all that important what the exact base color is after it gets tinted and cleaned up and stuff.

- Ix

Vallejo Iraqi Sand seems to be the accepted standard colour for wooden decks amongst 1/1250 scale modellers. It looks very much like the wooden deck colour in the posted picture. It is probably authentic but my tastes it has a bit too much pink and not enough yellow.

I don't know if all nationalities used the same wood – even if nominally the same, there must have been substantial variation in source and weathering.

For the RN at least, a lot of wooden decks were overpainted as the risk of air attack grew so those lovelly wooden finishes became dark sea grey.

If you don't want people picking up the ships directly, then you have to have a raised base. Less damage to the ships. Not a fan of clear bases.

Can't criticize the ships. Better than mine.

Great work…

Thanks everyone for the imput! I'm going to have to find a lighter shade of tan to work with for the Brits.

Very nice work. I also vote against bases, as they usually look very unrealistic on the table. Instead if I allowed others to handle my ships (which I don't), I would try to educate them to be careful. Perhaps a basin with a damp hand towel, to remove oils from the fingers?

If you ever decide to modify the decks, you might consider that:

1) Most Japanese cruisers seem to have had an orange-brown linoleum deck covering. link

2) IMHO, unpainted wood decks should be less brown and more tan in color.

MH

I've been guilty of the too dark wood decks many many times. I'm slowly trying to correct it, but it's a long process. But wood weathers a dizzying array of different colors in different weather conditions, so I try not to sweat it too much. Variety is the spice of life and as you get to the fleet level I think a certain amount of compromise is acceptable. If you have five or six hundred ships there will be mistakes. Inevitably. That said, you're doing a lovely job so far and I'd gladly see your fleets down range from my own (unbased) fleets.

The ships look beautiful! Then I immediately think of the horrors: grimy fingers, broken guns!

While I'd prefer no base, I felt that there were practical benefits besides protecting the minis:

1. lots of newbie players (I've trained 10 so far, never played wargames before!) who seem to be afraid to touch'em

2. the more ships in the game, I didn't want to waste time with questions of "what's that?" and picking them up …how can you be sure they will put them back in the right position/angle?! So a name label was crucial.

3. Without bases and hundred(s) of ships in a box, just my time looking for the right ones would be a pain!

Practicality is the trade-off I felt was worth it. And probably easier to store with fewer dented fenders.

ODGW's bases look really nice but didn't cover all the sizes I needed (I have 1:3000 Navwar) so I ordered Custom Basemaker from litko.net/BMaker (all .5" wide in varying lengths to allow for the wake), 1 mm thick, rounded corners. Litko would have added a "wake" by etching but I decided against that extra cost.

Instead I made up "name in wake" labels and you can see how it looks at the bottom of g-design.us/ships (you can download the pdf of my wake labels from the link in the caption above the Graf Spee anchor photo).

I tried making generic bow waves and put one on Graf Spee (see that same picture) but decide it wasn't worth it.

Like others I don't like the giant flag symbols but the wakes tend to be what you SEE if you are not looking for the name. It's "naturalistic". I underlined the Axis names bingo, you know who wears the white and black hats.

Like my land minis, I would have preferred strong, thin steel bases to adhere to magnet sheet in drawers/boxes. But the thought of the guys pushing the ships along the cloth sea and getting snagged made me think again. With clear, I can upgrade my sea at some point and the bases still "work". I have thought of this to secure the ships: a piece of soft foam cut to the same size as a shallow, reinforced jewelry box.

But my Navwar 1:3000 ships are not as delicate as yours. So if your sea is "smooth" you might test steel bases so that they can be stored securely on magnet sheets. Maybe wargameaccessories.com would make them to order and them to their store.

Appreciate the input guys! I think a clear base is the way to go I have priced out the ODGW bases, they might fit the bill. I had no idea that Litko did custom bases… I will have to look into that! Bill Owen, your ships look great! I like the names in the wake! I will say I'm not totally against names with little flags on a clear base, but I would have to see how it looks!

Thanks Mr. A. Camel! My first 4 ships' decks were painted with a custom-mixed color that were slightly too yellow. I assumed a wash would correct that but I had a hard time making the wash work right.

So my latest deck color is a stock Polly S* color: US Desert Storm Sand #505364. I really like how it looks, a bit between bleached and wood tan. Compared to the rather nasty picture I took, the actual models look a bit darker and there's more of contrast between the tan deck and grey hull.

It's probably important to note that it is on top of grey primer--which is what I leave for most of the ship's hull and superstructure. That might make the color a bit darker than if over a white primer which is what I usually use for smaller items to keep them light.

*It occurred to me to look on line to see if I could find that paint being sold still. I hadn't bought paint for several years and found out that there is no Polly S line of colors any more :( …so it looks like when I run out, I will have to go to the paint store and see if they can scan match the cap of my paint bottle where I had slopped on paint.

I scanned the cap top and after retouching to make it look right on my screen, got the following digital CMYK color: C32 M36 Y63 K3 (or RGB: R176 G153 B110). But your screen will probably look different.

megahobby.com appears to have a lot of good colors and reasonably priced

Link for acrylics: link

Some recently finished additions! German destroyers, the USS Hornet is in the backround. The cammo patterns bug me a bit… but I think I'm a perfectionist!

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"The best base is no base."

I've found the best base is the ODGW clear bases with the awesome etched waves. Fantastic bases.

Attackcamel
Brilliant work. Do you do commission work?

Your new stuff looks very nice indeed. Keep it up.