begins his series on how to paint a 15mm DBA army well, in a reasonable time frame.
This is a sheet of awnings, side armings, flags, and other cut-outs that is available from Langton for these ships. They have one each for the Muslim ships and the Christian ships. (This sheet has decorated a number of ships already.)
Beauty shot with all the decorations in place.
The side armings are simply razored out and glued into place along the side railings. I use Elmer's wood glue for this.
The awning is razored out of the sheet, cut to size and pre-bent the same way as the awning frame, then glued to the frame.
The flags are two sided. I razor them out, lightly glue the back of one side, then close the flag around a bristle from the old-as-the-hills gunbarrel brush. The bristles are then trimmed to size, the flags adjusted to eliminate as much white see-through as possible, crimped into a nice ruffled shape, and then glued to the yards with a tiny dab of superglue. Once the superglue is dry (wet, it is fatal to brushes!), I take my 18-aught brush and some Reaper Bright Red and cover any remaining visible white.
The commander's flag, which is visible right before the poop (remember that hole we drilled?), is done the same way as the large hanging flags, but leaving enough bristle for a flag pole. It is superglued into our hole.
This is the older-than-the-hills gunbarrel brush. Its bristles have armed and rigged hundreds of ships over the years. And, that is sawdust on the brush, not dandruff!
Beauty shot.
For the base, I use matteboard that is dark blue on the good side, and black all the way through. This can be had at the local HobbyJDStuff-mart. I cut a piece about 18mm longer and 18mm wider than the ship itself, and I lop off the corners at a 45-degree angle.
After positioning the ship where I want it on the base, I make very small white dots at the four corners of the oars.
The dots will tell me where to paint the wakes.
Using an old 5-aught brush and Reaper White, I paint the wakes. Rather than painting brush strokes, I sort of just jiggle my hand - like I've had, say, 18 cups of coffee - working my way from one dot to another, and slightly past the stern-most dot. Then I do the stern-wake.
Here is the finished effect, after the ship has been glued down with a thin coat of Elmer's wood glue. The Capitana pulls toward the Christian fleet!
Here are other examples of the Langton stable. The new Capitana is in company with both Muslim and Christian galleys of various sizes.
(put on your best Kirk Douglas voice)
"We got a Big Boy down there. This Big Boy has 36 oars to a side..."
This ship is the Muslim Bastarda, the Turkish flagship and the largest galley in the Langton range.
That's about it... Normally I work on a couple of small ships at a time. I like to have two or three "in the soup" while two or three are in the primer shed, while I am painting two or three. Finally, I put on a good movie and have a decorating fest, decorating 10 to 12 at a time. This one sole example took about 4½ hours, including time to shoot pictures. I did the soaking, drying and priming over the course of one day (probably no more than 5 minutes actual work) and then went from unassembled but primed to finished and based in one evening, with time off for dinner.
Thanks again to Rod and Carol for sending this and the rest along! Keep up the great work!