If you purchase one of the various starter fleet boxes for Black Seas, inside you'll find plenty of plastic ships along with some metal bits. These metal bits let you customize your frigates and 3rd rates into bespoke famous ships. The United States has 3 normal sized frigates in their box: Congress, Chesapeake, and Constellation. Interestingly, they provide 3 stern plates and 4 figureheads. Intrigued, I looked into it. The figureheads match the USS Constellation, but there were two of them: the first one of the original six frigates, and the second a sloop-of-war from the American Civil War era. The stern plate and the carved wood figurehead belong to the sloop-of-war, which now sits in Baltimore. The more ornate, angelic figurehead matches the original Constellation. I set that aside for now, and I decided to work on the 1854 version.
I went really big, now back down to the really small, to the second smallest seagoing ship-type in the game: a large cutter. But unlike all of my other Black Seas ships so far, this is not a Warlord Games model. This is a cutter from Hagen Miniatures, a miniature company from Germany.
Because being technically right is the best kind of right, Speedy does not get the designation HMS, as she is not a ship, as she does not have 3 square rigged masts. So she is His Majesty's Brig Speedy. This ship, and her captain, are famous for punching way above their weight class. Which is ironic, as Warlord Games decided to cast this in all metal, making her incredibly heavy for her size when compared with the other ships I've painted so far. So an extra coating of matte varnish to keep from chipping.
After I established my paint recipe for French ships, it’s time to toss that aside for some “historical” realism. You see, this ship exists today. Sure, it’s a replica of a past ship, but all the same there are actual reference photos that exist. So for the Hermione, I went with the colors, or a close approximation, that she currently is painted in.
Another turn around the sun and we find ourselves facing another year. New Years can be new opportunities, or a chance to finish the ones we set out for ourselves last year. I've taken some time to clean up the hobby desk, organize some collections, and generally make things more accessible to make my goals a little easier to achieve. Now lets see what I plan to do.
And so another year comes to a close. This was the year of exploration for me, as I tried a plethora of new games, from the far distant future of 40k to naval warfare during the age of Napoleon. Of course, a few little models got painted as well. I joined a few challenges from various other blogs, and now I'm a part of the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge to finish of this year and start the next. Overall, I would say that it's been a good year.
I’m moving through all of the major nations present in Black Seas, and now it’s the turn of the Spanish. I have painted a Spanish ship before, a large merchant vessel, but it’s not the “official” scheme used by Warlord Games to denote our Iberian friends. I use official loosely, as there weren’t really standardized paint schemes in this timeframe, more like pick a color out of this pot, and it was almost always a variation of yellow it seems. Regardless, here’s the red version.
