Paint Recipe | United States Navy

Last post, I painted up an American brig using more generic ship colors. That wouldn't do for the USS President, one of the famous six US frigates. I went for the classic black hull with white stripe that you can currently see on the USS Constitution in Boston harbor. I visited that ship earlier this year, and what I saw informed a lot of the decisions I made. 

Yes, I know that in the 1812 period, these ships were painted with ochre stripes, not white. Firstly, I hate that look. I grew up reading books about the Constitution that showed her in the iconic black with white, and the ochre just looks wrong. Plus, I'm using this for a game, not as a display model. The Royal Navy already has a rich yellow stripe and the French will have a pale yellow stripe, so there's just too much yellow going around for my taste. I've already discussed the Betsy Ross flag, they will stay and you historical sticklers will have to make do. It was good enough for Pirates CSG it's good enough for me. 

With all that out of the way, onto the colors I used. It's pretty basic at the end of the day. The hull, cannons, and masts were painted with AP Matt Black. The white stripes, detailing, furled sails, and masts are all GW Pallid Wych Flesh, which is an off white that looks better in this role than pure white. The stripe and furled sails got a thin coat of GW Contrast Apothecary White. The gun ports are painted with AP Dragon Red. The eagle on the back is GW Liberator Gold.  

The deck details are based on my visit to the Constitution. The deck planks are AP Uniform Grey, and importantly washed with AP Soft Tone. This lends them a brown hue that prevents the entire model looking too black if I had used a Nuln Oil or something similar. The wooden details, gun carriages, and tops of the masts use Vallejo Orange Brown washed with AP Soft Tone, which helps tie it into the deck and shifts the color closer to the brown spectrum then brilliant orange. The inside of the hull is AP Angel Green. 

And that's pretty much it, that will get you the standard look for the US Navy. Of course there are other small details, such as the figureheads and launches, but that will be unique to each ship, so I leave that for you to decide. Here the USS President fights against a 5th rate Royal Navy frigate, and you can easily see the size disparity between the two. I had always thought as a kid that these were fare fights between frigates, but the more I read the more I saw how out-classed other navy's frigates were in comparison, and these models really nail that. 

-The Space Dinosaur