"3D Printing Age of Sail /Man o War Ships" Topic

Big fan of Man o War back in the day. Thinking about designing and printing ships. Played a game of Dreadfleet once and the miniatures were so fragile I was afraid to handle them and the original Man o War masts were a pain. I've come to appreciate the metal sails you get with Uncharted Seas. If I was to print my own ships, I'd print the hulls and cast the sails from metal if I couldn't find a good poly material. Unfortunately, I can't find any galleon hulls or files of hulls on Shapeways. Anyone know have a source for historical (perhaps even ancients) or fantasy ship hulls?

Thingiverse has a few that show up under a search for "sailing" Of course these are only the files, you will still need to source a printer to print them for you.

and if you want to step up in scale, Printable Scenery has a frigate file: link

Awesome! I just printed this frigate out myself. And, oddly, I had the same bit of rail on the upper rear starboard side snap off in printing.

You're a man with his engine running on the same track as mine, Joe. Ever since the demise of Uncharted Seas I've wondered about having a go at digitally sculpting some fantasy ships of the line.

Personally, I'd choose to do them in 1/600 scale (same as U'Seas) because the detail you can get in that size is eye-popping, and the proportions of the vessels and scenery make for a really attractive game.

What do you think in terms of scale?

Unfortunately, I can't find any galleon hulls or files of hulls on Shapeways

Hm. There was a guy who had maybe a half-dozen "not Man-O-War" ships up for ages. The Bret galleon definately springs to mind.

If it were me, I would take some inspiration from the Blanche sketches published in WD some time prior to MOW's release:

Wako Joe, who do you use for a printer?

I have access to a Ultimaker 2+ at work. Although I have the file, the pic I posted is from the company's site. I have not had the time to start the printing yet. That will probably be my Thanksgiving project.

Why not just re-purpose some Uncharted Seas minis? They're dirt cheap on Chaosorc.com and other outlets.

Javelin

I use Uncharted Seas (dwarf, dark elf, and Imperial frigates) for Man o War now. Never cared for the original GW figs. But I'd like to fill in the gaps for orcs, dark elves, norse. I've looked on ebay for US orc and undead destroyers. No luck. A Black Ark is a mortgage payment. GW never made a ghost fleet (huh?)

So, make my own. A ghost fleet, some sort of capital ship for the dwarves, some orc ship designs, a chaos dwarf sub, etc.

Thinking about modifying the old Epic 40k Eldar Wave Serpent as a design. They were pretty cool.

A lizardman/skink fleet would be awesome!

Might fill in some of the gaps of my Epic armies. A Stormlord proxie… hmm.

Javelin

Nice Epic stuff on Shapeways. Going to need some of those Sandwalker, Rainhawk, Thundersqak, Dark Claw.

There's nothing for U'Seas at that link, Javelin.

Actually, U'Seas minis are quite hard to find, especially the human ships. Believe me, I've been looking.

You didn't look very hard MM

Figures being sold off cheap? Try "Clearance / Miniatures"

Admittedly not human ships

Strange; I searched for 'uncharted' and nothing came up.

Thanks for taking a look, Fantasque, yep, no human ships, and those are the old sculpts too. Alas!

Better late than never…

Try here:
link

:)

Also, I've been working on some Napoleonics…

TMP link

link