I seem to have got my modern naval mojo back of late, and have finally made some missile markers that I actually like. Markers to track the progress of missiles in modern games are common, but I wanted something a bit more aesthetically pleasing than card chits.
In the past I've used pipe cleaners and wire covered in cotton wool but have never really been happy with them. These were nice and quick to knock up and don't dominate the table, the problem I've found in the past.
Construction is very simple: I had some 40mm x 15mm bases lying around, so I drilled a small hole in one end and attached a length of 0.5mm brass wire, which was bent at one end so that most of the wire was horizontal to the base.
Leaving about 8mm (give or take) of wire clear to become the missile itself, I then applied filler ('Spackle' in the US I think) with a wet paintbrush to the rest of the wire to create the vapour trail.
I undercoated the whole thing in black primer, then painted the missile and vapour white and the sea base in dark Prussian blue. The 'missile' was given a red band, just to look like some sort of marking, and I painted the vapour trail light grey. While this was still wet I blended in a small amount of yellow and orange as the exhaust.
Once this was done, I dry brushed the vapour trail with white.
All in all, I'm very happy with the result. I thought I'd share because I've been trying to figure out how to do this for ages and I have plenty of failed examples.
Nick
